Beware World Cup greed

by Editor · March 10, 2010

In just over three months� time, South Africa will finally welcome the world as guests at the football World Cup. While the infrastructure is mostly in place to host the second-biggest global sporting event, it is not yet clear that the South African mindset is prepared entirely.

Reports of service providers planning to charge usurious prices, under the cloak of supply-and-demand economics, should alarm not only the World Cup organisers and the government (which already has expressed its concern), but all South Africans.

The World Cup obviously is a money-spinning event. Its owners, the world football association FIFA, is milking the tournament relentlessly, especially in the strict enforcement of sponsorship prerogatives � which means that paying spectators may be ejected even from publicly-owned property for drinking the wrong brand of cola or, indeed, a locally produced beer. This is the mercenary world of sporting competitions � and local entrepreneurs will also want a piece of the action.

However, local business must be guarded: many, perhaps most, visiting international fans will be experienced travellers who can readily spot a rip-off (that is, charges above adjusted high-season rates). Should the exploitation of football fans take on endemic proportions, then this will reflect very poorly on South Africans at a time when the country is hoping to present its best side to the world.

So it would be inappropriate for airlines to hike their prices unreasonably, even if demand should be high. The economics of supply and demand neither dictate nor force a seller or service provider to pump up tariffs. And in cases where such a service provider is a parastatal that always has an eye on the taxpayer for bailouts, extortionist strategies of raising profits would be particularly shameful. Moreover, it is not desirable that local business unrelated to the World Cup should be impaired by inflated prices.

Visitors to South Africa may well swallow the bitter pill of higher prices, even if they may grumble about it as they return home. But for the entrepreneur, the short-term profits on offer for a month will not compensate for the fury their regular local patrons will rightly feel at greatly increased prices.

Indeed, South African consumers must sound a warning now that they will not tolerate being overcharged by those service providers and retailers whom they ordinarily patronise. Consumers must make it clear that establishments which hike their prices unreasonably during the four weeks of the World Cup should no longer expect their loyalty when the visitors to South Africa have left.

Defenders of sharp price increases will glibly refer to the unconstrained nature of the market economy. Others might call the random inflation of prices greed. In Christian tradition, avarice (one of the seven deadly sins) is repeatedly condemned. St Paul went as far as classifying the greedy in the same category as idol-worshippers, the sexually immoral and robbers (1Cor 5:9-11).

As Christians, we must beware the uncompromising greed produced by events such as the World Cup. Meanwhile, informal traders and small businesses operating in zones allocated to World Cup events fear that they will be prevented from exercising their daily trade in June and July.

Where such fears threaten to be realised, it is our Christian obligation to stand in solidarity with those whose livelihood is relegated to the dictate of World Cup greed.