One year after the World Cup opener in Munich, the organizers have drawn an all around positive balance. Not only Germany's refurbished image abroad, the modernisation of the stadiums and the attraction of new members, but also a big financial profit have led to this conclusion. A final study proves: The World Cup was a big success.
"We didn't host the World Cup because of its expected earnings. Today we can state with satisfaction, that the investments in building the stadiums were compensated completely by the effect on the German economy", DFB General Secretary Horst R. Schmidt said.
923.000 foreign visitors came to enjoy the public viewings, 20.9% of them travelled to Germany just because of the World Cup. "There was a second World Cup happening outside the stadiums which paid off", said Professor Dr. Holger Preuß, the publisher of the study. But not only the cities benefited from the visitors, so did all of Germany. With every long-distance traveller, there were 0.6 additional guests that did not go to the matches, but did shopping or enjoyed the atmosphere. Furthermore, visitors from Europe stayed for an average of six days, long-distance traveller for 15 days.
Altogether, there was a 1.265 billiom Euro additional tax revenue, induced by foreign World Cup visitors and German "home stayers". This revenue covers the expenses of public authorities in funding the construction and rebuilding of stadiums.
The study numbers the consumer spending caused by the World Cup to 38,254 years of volume of work. The originated jobs in building industry (700), hotel and restaurant industry (3,700), trade (8,300) or service industry (17,000) differ enormously in their runtime. "That's why we call it volume and not jobs. The calculated volume is equivalent to 1,000 new originated lifetime workplaces or 50,000 jobs with a runtime of eight months", Preuß said.
At least as important as the economic impulse are other developments triggered by the World Cup. This includes the football enthusiasm in the country, the changed consciousness of the German population, the modernisation of the stadiums and the improved image abroad.
"The World Cup gave football an incredible push. Now we want to use and continue this push by spending the earnings sensibly", DFB-President Dr. Theo Zwanziger said.
