The World Cup has finally arrived, the month of global festivities, but what does this mean for different nations on the continent, especially for those that are not participating in the tournament?
Zimbabwe has hosted 5 time winners Brazil in a high profile friendly in Harare, that saw opinion polls for president Robert Mugabe and his unity government soar for being able to bring such champions to the country. In addition to the spectacle, the electricity monopoly has been ordered to not cut off any customers until the end of the World Cup, and to limit the current power outages the country faces.
On the other hand, there is a negative slant in East Africa,the Tanzanian FA is under severe pressure for hosting Brazil, they took a loan of US$2.5m to secure the match, but then saw the stadium fill halfway, thus leaving a big black hole in their finances. In Northern Kenya, Muslim Mandera has banned the showing of matches on big screen TV’s, the primary source of football consumption on the continent. There has also been the arrest of a Rwandan army general after he officially went AWOL to attend the World Cup without seeking permission to do so.
This will probably be the month where productivity and output falls on the continent with workers flocking to watch or check up on scores on mobile devices, it would be interesting to see if there is any data produced after this coming month on changes in output.
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