Billions more have been spent on other infrastructure. Budgets have been overextended, projects rushed to be completed, and more urgent development projects sacrificed.

But will these cities and their residents see a return on that investment? A successful event could yield better investment, a celebration of local culture and identity, as well as an enhanced perception of SA by the rest of the world. Or it could cripple municipal budgets, worsen locals’ sense of identity and damage SA’s already shaky global image.

Local Organising Committee CEO Danny Jordaan told the FM this week: “The city started feeling the pressure of shrinking revenue from the 1998 global financial crisis. They have debt now and will struggle after the World Cup, and I know the World Cup will be blamed.”

Low collection of rates and taxes has been worsened by the financial crisis, and the combined legacy may haunt city budgets for many years.

On a positive note, the event has forced cities to fast-track development and inner-city renewal that was already intended. In Gauteng, the upgraded area surrounding the Ellis Park stadium, road construction around Soccer City and upgrades to the province’s road network are some of these investments.

The City of Johannesburg’s 2010 executive director, Sibongile Mazibuko, says 2010 should give Johannesburg tangible benefits that go beyond the soccer pitch.

Of the city’s eight World Cup legacy projects, six have already been completed. The Bus Rapid Transit system is operational, 68 soccer pitches have been constructed in Soweto and 120 hostel units in Diepkloof are almost complete.

In addition, “street furniture” like lighting, rubbish bins and informal trading stalls are fitted in the inner city and stadium precincts.

Constraints presented by the financial crisis have delayed the construction of an indoor swimming pool and a theatre complex in Soweto. Both are expected to begin in the next financial year.

Mazibuko concedes that costs have soared. “The entire World Cup has been a strain on the budget, despite the shared responsibility with national government.”

Speeded-up projects have also had negative consequences. In some cases, democratic processes have been bypassed. Tender irregularities have risen substantially since projects got under way, as exposed recently by an Institute of Security Studies investigation.

Decision-making processes have been cut short to meet the deadline.

The Human Sciences Research Council’s Claire Bénit-Gbaffou says community participation has been one of the biggest casualties. Fast-tracking development means there is no public debate on the disruptive effects of regeneration strategies and the impact on residents.

Ellis Park’s neighbours are an example. “It is as if the nature of the event and the urgency of the deadlines exclude the relevance and legitimacy of a debate on the fate of the poor in the city,” she says.

Real financial benefits are still uncertain. When SA was awarded the right to host the World Cup, entrepreneurs jumped at the opportunity, believing they would benefit. But the reality is substantially different.

Earlier this month, informal traders at Soccer City protested at being booted out. Fifa prohibits trading within a 1km radius of match venues. Hawkers with food stalls that have fed the stadium’s construction workers and, before that, soccer spectators, can only peddle their fare beyond this distance. Fifa’s regulations stipulate that even newspapers cannot be sold near stadiums.

For the use of stadiums, Fifa will pay cities just 10% of ticket revenues. But it will walk away from the event with guaranteed riches of about US3,3bn.

The absence of real economic benefits may mean that the tournament’s legacy is less tangible. Germany’s World Cup in 2006 did achieve a sense of national pride and integration, while improving foreigners’ perceptions of the country. In 1995, SA experienced a similar moment of integration when the Springboks won the rugby World Cup on home soil.

But if economic benefits do not materialise as expected, is a better sense of identity enough to justify the exorbitant levels of investment? According to Fifa figures, more than 242m people worldwide actively played football in 2004, which is roughly one in 24 of the world’s population. So the global exposure attached to a soccer World Cup is perhaps rivalled only by a summer Olympics.

A recent study for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) reveals that the local development benefits of such an event can provide an additional spur to make the event a major success. It also helps to justify the investment required for the event, and ensure that the wider purpose is well defined and executed.

But the OECD report, written by Greg Clark, an internationally renowned authority on city and regional development, also reveals that too many events have left places worse off, with expensive facilities that have no post-event use, and a big future bill.

It is for these reasons that awarding bodies of international events have laid ever-increasing stress on the importance of a durable legacy from the events.

The report concludes that for a legacy and local benefits programme to work, it should be driven by robust leadership, with dedicated resources and skills which are distinct from the efforts required to host the event.

As the report states: “It is bad business to encourage cities, regions and nations to host such events but to leave them impoverished by the process of doing so.”

Another recent report by auditing firm Deloitte found that a major event has the potential to create a lasting legacy at the host city or country, with new levels of global recognition and economic, political, and social development. “On the other hand, if not handled correctly, a major event also has the potential to leave a disappointing legacy of abandoned stadiums, missed development opportunities, and lost investments.”

The legacy of the 2002 World Cup, jointly hosted by Japan and South Korea, has been widely analysed. Since that World Cup was not limited to any one city in particular, but instead required a minimum of eight stadiums, the event represented an unprecedented opportunity for Japan to spread development efforts throughout the country.

But the OECD report points out that the construction costs and investment to build the state-of-the-art stadiums for the 2002 World Cup was staggering — US2,9bn. Japan used 10 stadiums for its share of the matches, eight of which were built from scratch and opened in the two years preceding the event.

The report shows that the Japan/Korea World Cup’s intangible benefits have not been surpassed by any other World Cup on record and a surplus (¥5,48bn, or about US60m) allowed the Japanese to build new headquarters for Japanese football and a museum in central Tokyo.

However, evidence suggests that most, if not all, of the World Cup stadiums in Japan have left a bad financial legacy.

Both the scheduled repayment of loans and interest and the maintenance costs of running the facilities after the competition had ended remain as heavy burdens on local taxpayers. For example, it costs ¥2,6bn/year (about $30m) to maintain the Sapporo Dome, where the key matches were played.

However, another study found that the World Cup served as a useful exercise in the reconciliation efforts between the Japanese and the South Koreans by creating many interactions and exchanges at the civil society level.

But as the Deloitte report points out, host cities and countries should not assume a successful event will automatically deliver the desired changes and long-term benefits. “Creating a positive and lasting legacy requires strong leadership and sustained commitment.”

In SA, especially at municipal level, the leadership leaves much to be desired.