For whom is the holiday?

It seems difficult to find two more dissimilar countries than Russia and Qatar. But they still have a common one. Both that and the other are produced by the trade in oil and gas and are ready to bear astronomical expenses for organizing sports competitions, the interest in which their own population is zero or quickly strives for it. Yes, and the opinion of this very population on this account, both there, and no one is interested in.

The amount that Qatar is ready to pay for the preparation of the World Cup-2022, you can’t name $ 200 billion otherwise, which, with reference to the Deloitte report published on Thursday, was reported by the world media.

What are the sheikhs are going to sly like rushing money? Most of the budget - about $ 140 billion - will be spent on the development of the transport system, including the construction of roads, the subway and the new airport. And about 20 billion dollars will be invested in the tourist infrastructure in the expectation that by the beginning of the championship the number of foreign guests will grow to 3.7 million people a year (for reference: the own population of Qatar is about two million).

Of course, they will also spend on the construction of football arenas, which, to protect against the incinerating heat - and it reaches 50 degrees - can equip air conditioners and even a system of creating artificial clouds, unless in the end they decide to transfer competitions for the winter (now this issue is actively discussed).

In general, everything is like in our Sochi - the capital of the Winter Olympics in the subtropics, for which snow has already begun to stock up.

In brackets, I recall that in 2018 Russia will have its own world football championship, the costs of which should be made up and at all the amount that is ridiculous by Qatari standards-about 660 billion rubles ($ 20.6 billion), of which more than half (336 billion rubles) will have to be expenses of the federal budget. That is, our expenses with you. Another 100 billion rubles in the total boiler will be entered by taxpayers of the regions, who are lucky enough to accept competitions.

However, recently the Minister of Sports Vitaly Mutko made a significant application for the “modesty” of our costs for the upcoming five -year football extravaganza to not so noticeably catch my eye. At the end of June, he asked the government for a training program for the tournament with an additional 250 billion rubles (about 7.8 billion dollars). So the head of the Ministry of Finance Anton Siluanov had to publicly demand the legislative restriction of budget expenses for preparation for competitions at the planned level.

And not sacred.

All the last time, the Ministry of Finance has to scrape through the worships to fulfill the notorious election promises of the current president, as well as the grandiose infrastructure construction projects, among which the 2018 World Cup is far from the most serious expenditure article.

The expenses for the football championship will fall on the budgets of the regions accepting the championship, many of which may simply not withstand them. This was warned in the spring by Standard & Poor's, according to which the real expenses of the regional authorities to prepare for the tournament were already more than half the estimated budgets.

But maybe the economic effect of the football championship will subsequently block the costs incurred in the process of preparing? Here, experts & p offer to get rid of illusions: historically, such events in total gave a moderately non-negative contribution to the economy of the countries that accepted them. In most cases, the organizers not only allowed the budget overrun and ineffective expenses, but in the future they had to cover the costs of maintaining large sports facilities and infrastructure, which became unnecessary after the competition. Russia (and Qatar), apparently, has yet to drain it in full.

Well, what about the emotional rise of the nation? It turns out that there is nothing especially to catch. According to the June survey of Levada Center, more and more Russian citizens not only do not believe in the payback of the 2018 World Cup (as well as the Sochi Olympiad), but also refuse to experience pride in their occasion.

What emotions are overwhelmed by Qatar subjects, among whom there are hardly a dozen true lovers of the game of millions, due to the recently declared estimate, it is not known for certain. They were not asked in any. And they did not answer - they are silent, like us.

But in Brazil, where fans and football connoisseurs are clearly more than in Russia and the more Qatar, and the expenses for the 2014 World Cup (13.6 billion dollars), notice, much less, for some time they stopped silent for some time.

Well, what will you do if high -quality roads, education, medical services and lower taxes are more important to them more important than several “white elephants” and weak and short -lived aftertaste, it is not entirely clear from what a sense of “greatness”.

Photo EPA / ITAR-TASS