The World Cup reaches its climax tomorrow. Japan and Korea have been excellent hosts. So how has it been for them? And what has it done for FIFA's globalisation strategy? Keith Duggan asks
The problem with the World Cup is that it has to end some time. After tomorrow's final extravaganza in Yokohama between Brazil, copyright holders of the beautiful game, and Germany, the faultless engineers of winning formulae, the football has to stop.
Our little planet will have to take out a lonely hearts ad.
Psychoanalysts and therapists across the world must enjoy a boom time for the period of the post-World Cup blues. Many people have already begun to bemoan the sudden and unapologetic disappearance of all the madness, the colour and sheer escapism that the World Cup offers as its central theme.
The World Cup gets people who had never heard of Senegal to genuinely believe that they love the place. It convinces rational, conservative people that the overall worth of their life experience will be diminished unless they see Ireland, England or whoever play in the second round. They will fly halfway round the world on 48 hours' notice and worry about the cost later.
The World Cup inspires Joe Duffy, the cajoling voice for the plain people of Ireland, to do strange things on stage. And the World Cup gets people to cheer anyway. It promotes in a childlike but very effective way an appreciation of other cultures. At its height, the World Cup makes nations feel a lot better about life. At the very least, it sparks conversation in a bus queue. And maker of miracles that the World Cup is, it provides gainful employment for Paul Gascoigne.
Although most countries will feel a little greyer on Monday morning, the shrill full-time whistle will pierce Japan and Korea in an especially painful way. No race of people has ever clamoured to play the perfect host to so many and for so long.
For year-round football fans the World Cup is a month-long sporting orgasm, a festival of football that, for the first two weeks in particular, is both overwhelming and endless.
But FIFA is the slickest of marketers and has developed a circus that appeals way beyond the spectrum of the mundane soccer fan. FIFA has made the World Cup into the biggest party on the planet, and its global pigeons have thoroughly circulated the (sly but possibly true) message that if you ain't there, you ain't really living.
With the help of corporate superpowers who produce a certain soft drink and a certain range of flashy athletic gear, FIFA now presents us with a carnival that is about youth, celebration, beauty, skill, nationalism and pride, not to mention, fun, travel, sex, food and the chance to have your photo taken with Mick McCarthy. And soccer. The World Cup is also about soccer.
2002 was FIFA's great evangelical mission to the Orient, its quest to conquer the last frontier with its irresistible road show. Before now, Asia had at best been half-hearted about the lure of the beautiful game. Soccer's organising body knew its business in awarding this year's competition to Japan and Korea back in 1996. Even a cursory knowledge of either culture suggests that the nations would be conscientious and imaginative hosts. It is not every day, after all, that the West comes to visit.
If the Eastern alliance promised the moon and stars to FIFA, then they certainly delivered. The hosts spent €7.7 billion constructing 16 stadiums and refurbishing a further four. Japan pumped €5 billion into polishing its infrastructure; Korea spent just over half that. Their investments went light years beyond those undertaken by previous hosts.
France added just one extra sports facility, the Stade de France, at a cost of €746 million. In 1994, the US added none.
It was clear that for Japan and Korea, countries beginning to feel the squeeze now that the Asian tiger is choking, pride and image were of much greater consequence than fiscal sensibility.
Possibly spurred by traditional rivalry, each country went to pains to provide facilities that staggered the Western visitors. The €500 million Sapparo dome in Japan was the most futuristic, with a pitch that could be moved in and out of the ground. In Seoul, the organisers overlooked the 1988 Olympic Stadium, choosing to build a new arena for the opening ceremony.
But ultimately, 2002 was a success not because of the designs, which were kind of cold for all their wonder, but for the people, who were nothing but warm. Japan and Korea came out for the games with an excitement and innocence that charmed the more cynical soccer intelligentsia from Europe, Africa and the Americas. The hysteria and fun that they could glean from a mere throw-in or a routine save amused the seasoned soccer nations. We enjoyed watching them get off on our opiate and maybe wished we still got the same kick.
From the very start, when Senegal defeated their former colonial oppressors and world champions France, it was as if the very competition was reacting to the exotic appeal of the East. This World Cup quickly established itself as a classic in a kooky way, with the great powers falling while the minnows partied on.
Korea were the most sensational of the underdogs, earning the headline "Applause for Asia's tiger" in the Japanese daily, Yomiuri Shimbura. The aura of scandal that followed the Red Devils, with controversial wins over Italy and Spain taking them to the semi-finals, gave this World Cup its necessary potion of intrigue and conspiracy. So Sepp Blatter, FIFA's main man, tut-tutted over the linesmen. It is hardly the stuff to rock soccer to its core.
Whether Korea can build on its soccer success is not really the issue. The achievement of reaching the semi-finals is not unprecedented; 11 former host nations did likewise. The Asian Football Federation only came into existence in 1954, but stretching from Lebanon to Guam in the Pacific, it accounts for nearly half the world's population. And FIFA has said hello to them in a way that won't be forgotten.
Some 33.4 billion watched France '98 on television, a figure that will be eclipsed by this World Cup. 2002 will go down as the most global of the contests to date. For Japan, ever obsessed with Western culture, to hold the fashion show of the year in its own town hall was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
So what is the legacy? For FIFA, it is all about gospel and greenbacks. It has tapped into a market that seemed impenetrable for so long and now they will keep feeding the need.
Japan was hoping to attract 550,000 visitors throughout June, with Korea aiming for 400,000 in a brief but lucrative bonanza. But the lasting features for the hosts are all those new facilities that will, according to a series of studies, remain empty.
But that's the price you pay for the World Cup. FIFA will pick you up in a bar, love you and leave you for the next suit with a platinum card.