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Smarter play: Investments in education and technology will pay dividends long after stadiums have fallen into disuse.

China’s debut as an Olympic host was hardly the unqualified public relations nightmare that many people expected, especially after the Tibet riots and the subsequent torch-tour fiasco. If China’s goal was simply to host a fantastic Olympics, its $40 billion was well spent. In terms of sheer spectacle, impressive facilities, and the host country’s athletic performance, the games were without peer in Olympic history. But if the goal was to change international minds about China, its success was mixed at best.

With the deceptions during the opening ceremonies, the arrest of eight American demonstrators, and China’s failure to keep its promises about political openness, the Olympics have only reinforced the conventional view of the Chinese state as capable of outstanding feats of organization and social engineering, but also secretive, repressive, and hostile to basic human rights.

In the coming years, a number of emerging economies will follow China in using international sporting events to make a statement about their new global status. They will likely find that these events often do more to highlight their country’s lingering weakness than showcase its progress. The 2010 World Cup in South Africa is the perfect example: Unless the country can pull off a miracle, South Africa’s own coming-out party has the makings of being an international sporting disaster, a far riskier proposition for the host country’s image than the Beijing Games ever posed for China. Indeed, South Africa’s bid is already in danger of showing why gargantuan global sporting events are the worst way for emerging economies to show off to the world.

With strong backing from national patriarchs Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, soccer’s governing body, FIFA, announced three years ago that South Africa would be the site of the 2010 World Cup. It will be the first African country ever to host the Cup, or any global sporting event near its size. What better opportunity could there be for Africa’s leading economy to introduce the world to the enormous economic and social progress the country has made since the fall of apartheid? Yet even South Africa and FIFA are now second-guessing that decision.

As they should. Construction of the five stadiums that the country is spending more than a billion dollars to build is far behind schedule, hampered by shipping delays and a lack of skilled engineers. South Africa has already admitted that the stadium in Port Elizabeth will not be ready for next June’s Confederations Cup—an Africa-only soccer competition that is considered a dress rehearsal for the World Cup—and several other sites will be cutting it close. This month’s nationwide mine strikes are liable to worsen the delays.

South Africa is also in the midst of an electricity crisis caused by the state power company’s failure to keep pace with the country’s booming economy, which is currently growing at a roughly 5 percent clip. Rolling blackouts are now common in major cities and likely will be for the next two years. To guarantee power during the World Cup, the government might be forced to freeze major industrial projects.

Another worry is HIV/AIDS. Prostitution is sadly an integral part of any major international sporting event—despite a clampdown, brothels reportedly did a brisk business in Beijing—and that’s a huge problem in a country with an 18 percent HIV infection rate. The city of Durban’s recent proposal to legalize prostitution did little to assuage these fears.

But the biggest worry by far is violent crime. South Africa has one of the world’s highest murder rates, with more than 50 people killed each day. The world was shocked this summer by images of xenophobic riots in which 62 immigrants were hacked, beaten, or burned to death. A huge influx of wealthy fans would likely motivate criminals, even under the best of conditions.

South Africa’s pre-Cup jitters seemed particularly justified in early July when FIFA President Sepp Blatter admitted that there was a “Plan B” in the works in case South Africa could not be ready in time. Most South Africans reacted with outrage, but no doubt a few agreed with popular newspaper columnist Jon Qwelane that losing the World Cup might not be the worst possible outcome for the country. “South Africa wanted to impress the world by staging a World Cup we did not need; we needed jobs, houses, first-class health facilities, good education, non-cut-throat food and petrol prices, and not a World Cup we could hardly afford,” Qwelane wrote. “Roll out Plan B, Mr. Blatter!”

In fairness, South Africa still has a chance of getting the facilities constructed in time and has taken some constructive steps, such as introducing a program to hire 55,000 new police officers nationwide before 2010. Unfortunately for the country, the harsh media spotlight that accompanies a competition of this size means that the bar is set almost impossibly high. June 2010 could be the most peaceful month in South African history, but even one murder or mugging of a tourist will prompt reporters to ask whether granting such a dangerous place the right to host the event was a mistake.