Who was Marielle Franco?

 

I will be honest. I have never heard about Marielle Franco before the 14th of March, the day in which she was brutally killed in a targeted political assassination.

 

But reading her story made me think. How many brave people are there in the World?

I was thinking to the sad story of Giulio Regeni, the Italian researcher killed in Egypt in 2016 or Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Maltese Journalist killed in 2017. All people who weren't scared to stand up for the truth and for to fight against corruption and illegality.

Marielle Franco was, as written in an article on the Independent by Glenn Greenwald a "black LGBT + woman in a country notoriously dominated by racism, sexism and traditional religious dogma". Coming from one on the poorest Rio's slum, "she became a single mother at the age of 19, but she graduated at college, obtained a master in sociology, and then became one of the city’s most effective human rights activists". In 2016, she became the 5th most voted candidate in the elections for the Rio city council.

We think too much to ourselves, to work mostly doing something we don't like, to earn money to buy things we don't need. But we never think about the others, about the system in which we live. 

"Bowling alone" was written by Robert D. Putnam in 2000 to describe the collapse of the sense of community in America. Unfortunately this tendency increased in the last twenty years. 

Fortunately, there are still people like Marielle Franco, to remind us that we are not living alone.

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Is it worth hosting a major sporting event?

Few days ago the 2014 World Cup has began in Sao Paolo in Brazil. It is estimated that the economical effort to build all the infrastructures for Word Cup and Olympic Games (that will take place again in Sao Paolo in 2016) will touch the amount of 33 billion US Dollars (24 bl Euros).

Such an expense for the organization of a sporting event is creating many protests from the population. Brazil is a country with wide economical disparities, an high crime rate and a large part of the population  (15%) under the poverty threshold.

Many Brazilians think that such a big amount of money should have been used to solve those problems and not for a sporting event. A recent poll has showed that just 35% of people think that World Cup can have a positive effect on the national economy.

So it is spontaneous wondering if hosting a major sporting event can be an economic advantage or a loss. To answer we can take a look at the history of past International Sport Events.

Just few years ago, for example, the State of Canada has run out the debit for the Olympic Games of Montreal, that took place in 1976. Athens 2004 was a fantastic show, but its cost, around 10 billion Euros, have speeded up the collapse of the economy. 

A research has estimated that for the London Olympic games in 2013 there have been an immediate retuns of 800 million Euros, 5 billion will come back before the end of 2015 with a 0.3-0.4% of GDP growth rate. Considering that the total cost have touched the 10 billion Euros, there will be probably many years to refund the debit. 

Barcelona 1992, instead, was a fantastic opportunity for the renovation of the imagine of the city, that has become one of the most attractive touristic city in the world. Also Turin has changed its international image after the XX Winter Olympic Games in 2006, at the price of 3 billion Euros. 

Panoramic of the costs of the most recent Olympic Games (www.tradingfloor.com)

It seems that hosting sportive events is not always a good investment. The returns are not enougth  to cover the costs, or they can do it on a very long period (30 years for Montreal...). Moreover, the structures built for those kinds of events are often not reutilezed anymore. It is, once again, the case of Athens, where the beautiful Olympic park has been left to the decay. 

Maybe, it is the moment to rethink to the organization of major sporting events, from one side to preserve the tradition and to the other to face to the current economic situation, unless we want to see these events taking place just in Dubai or similar places.

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