Perception of public managers on the sustainability of sports mega-events: the case of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil

Abstract

The realization of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil generated meaningful transformations in the host cities. These transformations brought concerns over the sustainability of a mega-sport event. The present study tried to understand the sustainability resulting from the World Cup in the city of Natal, Brazil, from the perspective of local public managers. This qualitative, descriptive research, whose data were inductively analyzed, used a semi-open interview composed of 24 semi-structured questions in order to obtain information from the public managers at local and state levels and who are linked to the event. As a result, the managers involved concluded that the 2014 World Cup in Natal did not serve sustainability neither leave any sustainable effects. It was also observed that the lack of sustainability was due to the lack of adequate planning and technical projects, as well as to the lack of organization and social participation in the preparation and follow-up of the works and actions necessary for its accomplishment. Among the propositions of new works, there is the recommendation to analyze how the public managers and the normative regulations are dealing with sustainability in the planning and in the projects for the realization of two other mega-sport events, the FIFA 2018 World Cup in Russia and the FIFA 2022 World Cup in Qatar.