The aim of the study was to examine what the economic and touristic impacts of the sports event - UEFA EURO 2012 - will have on Polish regions. The essay was limited to some specific regions in Poland. Those regions were Gniewino, Malbork, Kalisz, Legionowo, Pommerian Province, Cracow, Olsztyn and Zamosc. The Football Championships that will be held in 2012 are dependent of the big amount of football fans that will came and spend their money in Polish regions. Thanks to the increased consumption this creates demand for local services and products. The generator of spending is the tourism multiplier that is the main link to the touristic expenditure.The multiplier is a catalyst of the region that creates jobs, growing yield, promotion of the region and improvement of its infrastructure and leisure facilities. This is considered as an advantage from an economical and touristic point of view. The economical and tourstic benefits are different for every mentioned region in the study because of their location and link to the UEFA EURO 2012. This study shows only how the different eight regions prepare for the UEFA EURO 2012 and what they think that the negative and positive economical and touristic impacts will gain them. The study gives only a short brief of the football event of what can happen.

Residents are main actors in the context of publicly funded sport events due to their role as taxpayers, and the importance of their support in an event’s success. The use of taxpayer dollars for hosting sport events is typically justified by event proponents (e.g., the local government) by highlighting purported positive event outcomes for the community. The extent to which such outcomes are attained may therefore influence the relationship between residents and their local government. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the long-term outcomes of publicly funded, non-mega sport events, and to examine the role of trust, knowledge, and power in the public/government relationship and event support in relation to these outcomes. To achieve this purpose, I focused on two publicly funded non-mega sport events, specifically the 2011 and 2019 Canada Winter Games, and drew on agency theory. The project progressed through three phases of research, each culminating in a research article. The first phase involved outlining the theoretical approach taken for this project. Next, I investigated the event objectives and long-term outcomes from resident and event provider perspectives. Finally, I investigated the public/government relationship by determining factors that predict general political trust and event support. The first article explains how agency theory, and the concepts of power, knowledge, and trust can be used to investigate political implications of publicly funded sport events. The second article suggests that while most residents evaluated their respective event positively, the interests of residents and event providers regarding event objectives and outcomes diverge. The final article revealed that event experiences positively predicted event support three- and 11-years following the event, and that residents’ power (i.e., ability to influence) negatively predicted political trust, while knowledge (i.e., understanding) positively impacted political trust in the event context. The three articles are preceded by a general introduction and are wrapped-up by a concluding chapter. Cumulatively, the results demonstrate that actors within the context of a publicly funded non-mega sport event may act as principals and agents in various moments of the event hosting process. Further, findings suggest that ensuring host residents are informed of the event will foster trust in the local government, and that community-focused tangible outcomes in particular will foster event support. This dissertation contributes conceptually and empirically to sport event management literature by taking a long-term post-event perspective on publicly funded, non-mega sport events. Practically, event providers should ensure that residents are fully informed of the event hosting process, and should ensure that tangible, and sustainable event outcomes occur as these seem to impact the most residents in a host community even from a long-term perspective. Finally, this work outlines the need for future research addressing methodological challenges in non-mega sport event research, investigating opportunism and monitoring in principal-agent relationships, and determining appropriate public engagement strategies for sustainable event outcomes.

The 2010 Fédération Internationale de Football Association’s (FIFA) World Cup (WC) would be the first time that a FIFA WC would be hosted on the African continent. This study was aimed at describing the South African City of Tshwane (COT) general volunteers’ experiences of volunteering at the 2010 FIFA WC. The FIFA Volunteer Programme consists of two groups of volunteers: Local Organising Committee (LOC) volunteers and each Host City (HC) volunteers. The COT volunteers are HC volunteers from the Tshwane Metropolitan Area (TMA). Volunteers are active in a variety of different contexts, namely in the community, volunteers at sport clubs or schools and also at mega sport events. Volunteers make it possible to host a mega sport event because they provide their time and effort without expecting remuneration or they receive a stipend amount. The existing literature of volunteers at mega sport events investigated what motivated volunteers to participate as well as how satisfied the volunteers were with the experience. The aim of this study was to describe COT general volunteers’ experiences of preparing (preparation phase) for the 2010 FIFA WC; COT general volunteers’ experiences during (participation phase) the 2010 FIFA WC, as well as the South African COT general volunteers’ experiences on their involvement (reflection phase) at the 2010 FIFA WC was described. The methodology employed in this study was Descriptive Phenomenology and the Duquesne Phenomenological Research Method was used to analyse the material. The differences between Descriptive Phenomenology and Interpretive Phenomenology were described. The material consisted of a written account as well as an interview, which was based on the essences that were portrayed in the written accounts. There were five participants — three spectator services volunteers and two rights protection volunteers. All of the participants were female. The findings of this study were divided into the preparation phase, participation phase and the reflection phase. In the preparation phase the COT general volunteers described two essences namely, the application process and training. In the participation phase the COT general volunteers experienced four essences namely, the working of shifts, interaction with volunteers, interaction with supervisors and lastly interaction with tourists. In the reflection phase the volunteers described two experiences, growth and value. This research project contributes to sport psychology because this study describes the experiences of volunteers at the 2010 FIFA WC. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Psychology / unrestricted