How Hosting the 2002 FIFA World Cup has Impacted Japan over the past 2 Decades

FIFA organizes the World Cup every four years, which allows countries from every single place on the earth to test their abilities against other countries, and battle it out in a group stage, and single-round elimination phase throughout the World Cup. In 2002, Japan co-hosted this World Cup alongside South Korea, and the benefits are still rolling on for Japan. Today, we take a look at some of the benefits, and downfalls that Japan had faced whilst hosting the 2002 World Cup.

What was the 2002 FIFA World Cup?

The 2002 FIFA World Cup saw both Japan and Korea (shared) host 32 professional football teams and allowed them to compete for the best football team at that time. The tournament lasted 30 days, and saw 64 matches split roughly half in both South Korea and Japan (plenty of games for both countries – just like at シークレットカジノ).

In the end, Brazil ended up winning against Germany, with Turkey coming third, and hosts South Korea coming fourth. The 2002 FIFA World Cup was also the last tournament to use the “golden goal” rule, where a team (if tied after 90 minutes) would have to play until a goal was scored, announcing the winner.

What were the main benefits of hosting the 2002 World Cup for Japan?

As Japan and South Korea both had equal rights in the World Cup, sharing their grounds, funds and hospitality to the teams – the benefits were quite great for both countries. Initially, Japan didn’t have much of a chance as South Korea were selected by FIFA (World Cup organizers) but due to a last-minute bid, and a few back and Forths – FIFA decided to split the host nation between both Japan and South Korea.

When Japan hosted the World Cup in 2002, there were a large range of benefits that it brought along. The main being tourism. When a country hosts a world-cup, they have to not only accommodate the players and teams along with their staff, but the superfans that will travel far and wide to support their countries teams. A survey suggested that over 10 million fans traveled specifically for the World Cup in 2002, which is a lot of tourism for Japan. Although Japan was drawn up to lose around 50 billion yen ($300 million USD) they were still hopeful that co-hosting the World Cup would be great in the long run.

As tourism was going to be the main source of residual income from co-hosting the World Cup, there were also some internal benefits to hosting it. The J-League (Japan’s main football league) was quite new, only being drawn up in the 1990s and good players were hard to come by. When the World Cup arrived, it drove many Japanese people to pick up football as a hobby and slowly but surely many famous, and highly-skilled Japanese football players came around simply because of this World Cup.

Another key point to mention was at the time, Japan was going through some hard times financially but they benefited favorably from the currency exchange rates.

How Japan is still profiting from the 2002 World Cup

Although Japan has cut their losses from co-hosting the event, Japan will always benefit from the event. Tourism was still high and the initial growth spurt of tourism has allowed Japan to focus on tourism in general allowing people to visit Japan as a main ‘bucket-list’ item in people’s lives.

Not only this, but the inspiration from the World Cup has transpired to the J-League meaning that players from both inside Japan and abroad are recognizing this and companies are too, allowing teams to be sponsored which in the end – all trickles down into the Japanese economy.

Was it worth it?

The quick decision to co-host with South Korea may not have been the financially appropriate thing to do, but with the burst of tourists and the internal development of Japan’s own football facilities, Japan has more than profited, and will continue to profit from the 2002 World Cup for years to come.