The World Cup and Gross Domestic Product(GDP).

You would wonder what in the world, the FIFA World Cup has to do with Gross Domestic Product(GDP)figures of countries but, come to think of it, it has evertything to do with it.
Consider this: the top three finalists at this 2010 World Cup Finalists are Germany,Netherlands and Spain. Its no coincidence that these countries are countries with some of the highest GDP figures acording to the World Bank.
Many have decried the poor perfomance of African countries at this World Cup and other earlier editions (save for Cameroon in 1990 , Senegal in 2002 and Ghana in this World Cup). The truth is that historically, the best perfoming countries at the World Cup have also been some of the wealthiest. All countries that have won the World Cup have been major industrial powers(save for the Latin American countries). England,Italy,France,West Germany have each won the world cup.
There would seem to be a corelation between GDP and success at the World Cup finals. Can this be pure coincidence?
Many pundits agree that hosting the World Cup on home soil is an advantage. Think here of the French in 1998 or the English in 1966 or even Uruguay in the maiden competition.
Not every country has the economic muscle to host a World Cup. FIFA recently revealed that there were not many countries in Africa which would have been able to host the prized competition even if they wanted. Investing billions of dollars in perfunctory stadiums, many of which will not be used much after the World Cup, is not every country's cup of tea. In Africa, not even Nigeria can afford such hefty investments despite the billions in pay offs that come with hosting such a global show piece. South Africa is reported to bag close to 3 billion dollars as an off-shoot of hosting the World Cup in terms of increased Tourism interest, trade and commerce.
Besides all the economics, it takes money to afford the best training possible for a competing team, hiring the best coaches money can buy, paying competitive player bonusses(many African teams self-destruct on account of unpaid bonusses at competitions).
If African countries want to win the World Cup may be the Holy Bible comes in handy' Seek first the economic kingdom and the rest will follow'.