The World Cup is good at creating a deadline for infrastructure spending by host countries, and it’s great for stimulating tourism, but many see Africa’s first-ever 2010 FIFA event as a squandered opportunity, CNNMoney reports at KTUU.com.

As the World Cup heads to Brazil this week, South Africans are reflecting on the 2010 World Cup. It boosted tourism and national pride, but the economic benefits didn’t live up to the hype and came at a very high price, CNNMoney reports.

It’s notoriously difficult to measure how much major sporting events benefit local economies, said Johan Fourie, an economics professor at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. The ability to attract wealthy tourists from other countries is one key determinant.

South Africa spent about $3.9 billion on the 2010 games, including $1.3 billion on stadium construction costs alone.

During the 2010 World Cup, South Africa attracted about 220,000 extra tourists from countries outside Southern Africa and 300,000 extra tourists over the whole year, according to a research paper published in the Journal of African Economies.

That means South Africa spent $13,000 per visitor, the paper said.

The revamped infrastructure is still there. Hosting major sporting events is about more than just driving tourism.

South Africa has seen a increase in tourism in the years since the World Cup, especially from Latin American soccer hot spots such as Brazil and Argentina.

Hosting mega sporting events is potentially successful but an enormously expensive strategy to develop tourism in developing countries, researchers concluded.

In addition to infrastructure, some of the money spent on the 2010 World Cup went into increasing foreign investment and improving lives of South Africans, CNNMoney reports.

That included renovations to major airports, highway improvements and a state-of-the-art rail system.

“It’s all because of the World Cup,” Fourie said. “The World Cup is very good at creating a deadline for infrastructure spending that might have occurred but only in the medium-to-long term.”

South Africa has not been able to attract as much business investment as it hoped, said Mark Clark, a business professor at American University.

“While some measures there were a success, South Africa doesn’t seem to have leveraged the World Cup to the extent they could have,” said Clark. He said infrastructure such as stadiums are underused and lack anchor tenants.

Countries continue vying to host the World Cup and Olympics despite the difficulty of translating major events into sustainable economic growth, the report said. That may be partly due to less visible benefits such as national pride and improving a country’s standing in the world.

“I loved being there during the World Cup as South Africans came together and were proud,” said Mike Diamondis, who was born in South Africa and lives and works in Angola. “You could feel the excitement.”

South Africa’s economy has not overcome problems that existed before the World Cup such as mine labor strikes and income inequity.

While the South African stock market nearly doubled in value since June 2010, South Africa’s gross domestic product has slowed and even reversed during the first quarter of 2014

The World Cup “created a wave and an opportunity for us to capitalize on,” Diamondis said. “Over the years I believe we lost the momentum. We just went back to being a nation dealing with so many problems, and we haven’t found solutions yet, even if the World Cup did bring some excitement.”

The World Cup 2010 went off mostly without a hitch. Social unrest didn’t disrupt
any games, stadiums were completed on time, and there was no violence to scare tourists and potential investors watching on TV.

While South Africa’s economy has slowed, it isn’t dealing with asset or credit bubbles that have followed similar mega events.

“That was a real fear at the time,” said Ludovic Subran, chief economist at Euler Hermes, CNNMoney reports.