ABSTRACT
There was once a time when a sports event was just that: an occasion at which athletes met to see who could run faster, jump higher, throw the javelin further. Today, sport remains the anchor of the Olympic Games, the football World Cup and other mega-events – but it has become a sideshow in many other senses. Of about 360,000 accredited personnel at the London Olympic Games in 2012, fewer than 3 per cent were athletes. 2 Although the number of athletes at the Summer Olympic Games has hovered at around 10,000 for the past 20 years, the number of media representatives has almost doubled, while that of security personnel has trebled. 3 Neither does expenditure for venues and sports-related infrastructure continue to be the most expensive item in the budget. Investment in transport infrastructure or the upgrading of neighbourhoods eclipses money spent on sports, sometimes by several times. 4 Barcelona, for example, allocated 83 per cent of its budget for the 1992 Summer Olympics to urban improvement, not to sport. 5
