“In 2014 there are 3 major world class sport events taking place (the Sochi Winter Olympics, The World Cup in Brazil and the Glasgow Commonwealth Games).  They are all costing a significant amount of money to stage – some much more than others, but should governments be spending such large sums on these ‘one-off’ sporting events? There is a great deal of poverty in Brazil, there is a major security threat (and subsequent high spending) in Russia and there are sizeable spending cuts in the UK –so why spend so much on hosting sports?”