Far from creating an economic boom, hosting the Fifa World Cup is a reckless extravagance for South Africa.
One thing London can be grateful for when it comes to the next Olympics is that it's still four years away. Enough time, as Simon Jenkins argues to change the plan. Or if things get really bad, call it off altogether.
This is not a luxury available to the hosts of the next mega-event on the global sporting calendar, the 2010 Fifa World Cup.
South Africa has already boasted too loudly and spent too much to do anything now except push on to the end. Even if the rest of the world stays home and watches on TV.
This would not be a good result since we are squandering our grandchildren's inheritance getting ready to receive you.
In my home city, Cape Town, for instance, we are putting up an enormous and ruinously expensive 68,000 seat German-designed super venue. The stadium already dwarfs the commonage and low-rise flatland of its well-to-do Green Point neighbourhood, and it's not even half-finished. At a current estimate of 4.5bn rand (£250m), it's already 50% over budget, but it's early days.
Not only is the stadium far too big for a city where even premier league matches struggle to attract 15,000 spectators, but most of those spectators live far away in the dusty townships of the Cape Flats.
Early in the planning, there was considerable official and public enthusiasm for the new venue to be built in one of the poorest areas, where the need for sports facilities and transport infrastructure is painfully obvious.
Green Point was chosen, according to popular legend, because Sepp Blatter didn't want shack settlements spoiling the occasional panoramic camera shot. On the other hand, the provincial premier at the time had links to a Dubai company interested in buying a piece of prime property right next to the current site. Maybe it was a happy coincidence of interests. Unhappily, they didn't coincide with the needs of the people who will be paying the bill for years to come.
Cape Town is not the only city throwing its treasure into unnecessary, inappropriate, unsustainable and sometimes downright dubious projects for what the local organising committee continues to insist will be the "best ever" World Cup.
All in all, South Africans will be forking out for five brand new super-stadia as well as elaborate extensions and upgrades to five existing ones.
We're also spending money we don't have on bigger airports, new airports, more roads and a very expensive high-speed train which may or may not be ready in time to whisk visiting fans from Johannesburg's revamped or Tambo Airport to the swanky hotel and shopping district of Sandton.
And because our national electricity provider has unexpectedly run out of capacity, we are importing brand new diesel-fired back-up generators, and extra diesel, just to make sure the floodlights stay on.
The budget for the event itself has ballooned from R2.3bn (£120m) in 2004, when the bid was awarded, to R23bn (£1.2bn) today. This may sound like a bargain to Londoners, but for us, it's a reckless extravagance. (And bear in mind the rand is losing value even faster than the pound.)
In return, we were promised an economic boom - foreign investment, a flood of rich tourists, sustainable jobs, business opportunities and the admiration of the world.
But as former host nations have learnt to their ongoing cost, mega sporting events never deliver what it says on the cheerleaders' T-shirts, even at the best of times
Not even China can point to any quantifiable return on its massive investment. All it can claim is a brief surge in national pride, already overwhelmed by poisoned milk.
If national pride is all South Africa can hope for, we're in deep trouble. Even a best-ever World Cup means little to the host country if its team disappoints. Our once heroic Bafana-Bafana are currently 85th in the world rankings. Their courtesy invitation to the world's soccer showcase has become an embarrassment. We expect a run on Brazilian shirts.
Still, at least now, if we're left bankrupt, we can blame the world economy rather than our own vainglory.
Tickets are due to go on sale in January. If you do come, please use water and electricity sparingly.
Hilary Venables
guardian.co.uk
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