David Owen: Mega-events – why FIFA needs to engage the little guy

It is 29 July 2012. I am on a bus with other journalists being whisked through south-east London on a lane reserved for Olympic vehicles. Beside us, I am uncomfortably aware, snakes a long queue of non-Olympic traffic. It is at this point that I spot a road sign that makes me do a double-take. It says: “Ha Ha Road Closed”.

I later checked on a city map and there is, bizarrely, a Ha Ha Road in that area of the UK capital. No matter: imagine that you don’t know that and you are an ordinary motorist enduring a journey that is taking much longer than it should because the Olympic circus is in town. And then you see that sign. How do you suppose it makes you feel?

It is a small thing, but it helps to illustrate why, seemingly, the world is turning against mega-events.

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