Now that the football world cup is done and dusted, we must introspect the question, Was hosting the world cup a colossal waste of money for Qatar?

Qatar spent $200 billion on the world cup. They built massive expressways, subsea tunnels, state-of-the-art hospitals, swanky hotels, and upgraded their airports. The whole shebang!

For context, Russia spent just $16 billion in 2018. Brazil — about $20 billion in 2014. And South Africa sunk $7 billion in 2010 to get everything in order.

Well, Qatar expects the World Cup to give back $17 billion to its economy. That’s a decent sum of money. However, it pales in comparison to the $200 billion figure quoted at the top. The hope is that an event of such mammoth proportions creates word of mouth and goodwill for years to come. It’s all a big fat marketing expense.

But wait…does that mean there's absolutely no utility in the present? Well, the hotels and the added infrastructure will likely add some value for now. But there are a few expensive assets that definitely won't yield a lot of utility i.e. 7 brand-new stadiums built at  a whopping cost of $6.5 billion.

What do you think? Did Qatar made a smart decision spending such a huge amount of money?