Mega sporting events: A poisoned chalice or a new dawn for low- and middle-income

Abstract

Mega sporting events in South Africa, which has the largest number of HIV-positive people in the world, and India, with 1.8 million deaths of children under 5 each year and 52 million stunted children, raise questions about the effective and, as importantly, the moral imperative of spending billions of dollars to host a sporting event. From a health perspective, selling alcohol and debt tarnishes further the notion of any intangible benefits of mega events to low- and middle-income countries.

Keywords

• Mega-sporting events
• low- and middle-income countries
• health perspective