ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the complex and complicit financial arrangements enabling the construction of a stadium for the Rugby World Cup. It investigates how costs and debt can be deliberately obscured, blurred and otherwise conflated within the disaggregated structures of contemporary local government. More particularly, we draw comparisons with the ‘shell game’ (a type of swindle involving three cups or shells and a pea). We trace the historical context in which governments have been encouraged to become entrepreneurial, resulting in the mixed ownership models of holding companies. We argue that this model of governance enabled the shifting of costs and debt such that the project could be made palatable to both councillors and citizens. However, the complexity of this design is such that it would be virtually impossible to analyse, interpret and debate.
