And South Africa is not the only emerging economy that has bought into the false promise of global sporting events. Russia hopes the 2014 Winter Olympics will showcase its recent economic turnaround. But the Olympic site, Sochi, is just a 15-minute drive from a war zone in the breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia. Two unexplained bombings recently rocked the Black Sea resort town.

Back in 2007, the chairman of Russia’s bid committee told reporters there were “no questions on security now,” and a top Kremlin official predicted that the Abkhazian conflict would soon be resolved. Russia is going to have to spend the next six years not only convincing the world that Sochi will be ready, but convincing countries that their athletes will be safe in the violence-plagued North Caucasus. That is, if Western countries seeking to punish Russia for the recent fighting in Georgia don’t take the Olympics away first.

In 2012 “new Europe” nations Poland and Ukraine will co-host the Euro Cup and are already trying to explain away delays and corruption scandals. Brazil’s soccer confederation has drunk the Kool-Aid as well, promising that the 2014 World Cup will “enable Brazil to have a modern infrastructure.”

There’s little evidence, though, to suggest that investing in a major sporting event does much to help transform a country’s economy. Commentators now even commonly refer to an “Olympic hangover” when overheated economies decline after hosting the games. In fact, since 1956, Olympic hosts have seen their GDP growth fall by an average of nearly 7 percent in the two years following the big event.

The money that South Africa is spending on the five stadiums alone could have increased its 2008 healthcare funding by 3 percent, expanded education funding by 8 percent, or paid the salaries of 80,000 Johannesburg police officers—investments that would undoubtedly have paid dividends long after the stadiums have fallen into disuse.

In truth, events like the Olympics and the World Cup are the farthest thing from appropriate showcases for economic progress—they’re more likely to highlight a developing country’s faults. Yanking a country like South Africa out of any historical context invariably emphasizes the areas where it falls short, rather than the progress it has made. Once the dazzle of a spectacular opening ceremony or high-tech stadium fades, the world will remember a developing country struggling with less glamorous challenges such as pollution, crime, and crumbling infrastructure. In the long run, emerging countries that bet their reputations on a sporting event may wish they had spent a little more time boosting their number of exports or college graduates rather than playing games.