As the global economic downturn continues to plague companies, the World Cup turned into a profitable business for at least three countries – hosting country South Africa and finalists Holland and Spain. But the biggest winner from the one-month tournament was FIFA.

The hosts have reaped the economic, social and political benefits and are calculating whether revenues from rugby matches would be enough to cover the $40 million maintenance cost for the 10 state-of-the-art stadiums once the football fiesta has wound down. The 64 matches were watched by billions of television viewers and more than three billion spectators at the stadiums.

The 2010 World Cup created more than 115 000 jobs. The tourism industry alone enjoyed an over 10-fold increase from marketing spending for the past years. The political benefits cannot be estimated yet but the country has been the focus of attention for the past 30 days.

"This World Cup has helped with an image makeover and a rebranding of the country and the capacity of the country," said organising committee chief Danny Jordaan.

The Netherlands and Spain, which on Sunday yielded the 19th world champion, expected an acceleration of economic growth by between 0.25 per cent and 0.5 per cent if they clinched the title.

Television companies are setting new records, with audiences in the US having surged by 50 per cent from the 2008 level. In Germany, the semi-final against Spain was watched by an unprecedented 32 million people (or a 90 per cent market share), which was also watched by one in three Spaniards.

The billions of viewers around the globe also saw for the first time large advertising presence by until recently unknown but very ambitious Asian corporations. Internet fraudsters and spammers also took advantage of the World Cup, with 25 per cent of the 120 billion spam messages per day sent globally since March linked to the championship, according to Symantec.

However, the big winner ended up to be FIFA. The federation pocketed the record-shattering $ 3.2 billion in television rights and marketing revenue, up 30 per cent on 2006. FIFA will not pay a single penny taxes and fees to the host country thanks to its status under legislative amendments made in South Africa especially for the World Cup.

Source: Dnevnik.bg