A " Costly " World Cup

$70.62 ...
Sound familiar ? If you are a football fan like me , that amount would ring a bell in your head .
Why ?
If you want to catch all 64 live matches of the world cup in South Africa in June , be ready to fork out $70.62 .
Yes , we football fans in singapore rejoice when we heard that Singapore had finally secured the rights to broadcast the biggest event in world football after months of fruitless negotiation with FIFA . However it seems our happiness was short lived , wasn't it ?
Compared to the prices we had to pay 4 years ago , which was $10.50 for early birds , the figures now had increase by 7 times ! That is way too expensive , isn't it ?

Reading the newspaper in the morning , it seems that many coffee shop owners agree with me . It was reported that they to pay $2,888 for the 1st TV set in their coffee shop and $1888 for each subsequent sets . Misery ? Not yet , they have to $4,888 for TVs with larger screens ( 50 inches and above ) !

Not all coffee shop will be airing the World Cup without a doubt . Some refuses to be held hostage over the outrageous prices .
" I'm seriously considering boycotting this . I will discuss with other coffee shop owners to see what they intend to do , " said Madam Yeo
Why the huge increase you might ask ? Well , Singtel and Starhub reportedly splashed out a cool $21 million to secure the rights , a far cry from the amount of $12 million paid by Starhub for the 2006 World Cup . Thus , the huge inflation of the prices now .
Aware that they are penalised by FIFA , some fans labelled FIFA as a ' greedy ' organization for asking so much more than the last world cup .

In my point of view , i had to agree with them that the prices are ridiculous . Why ? With most matches kicking off past midnight , many fans will find it impossible to catch all 64 . Therefore it might be throwing money into the bin for many people . Worse thing is , not everyone can keep their eyes open ! It will be true in my case as I cultivated a early sleeping habbit and i usually close my eyes if the matches are boring . And since coffee shops paid a fortune to showcase the match , surely prices of food will increase . Can you imagine $2 for a cup of coffee ?

What really caught my attention of this news was that being a football - crazed fan , this news really affected me . I have to fork out so $70.20 to watch the world cup and trust me , that is more than my weekly allowance . Right now , I'm torn in between boycotting or paying a ' ransome ' . I mean imagine my shocked when on the way being driven to school , my mum asked me to cough up $70.20 . I openly refused and there may not have a shout of " GOAALLL " in the Tay's household in June .

My question for the writer of the newspaper will be : " What are the coffee shop owners going to do ? " Surely , their rice bowl will be threaten by this . Are they going to raise prices of food in order to make a profit ? I hope they don't , i don't want a $6 mince meat noodle .

If I'm in control of this , I will still maintain the prices of $70.20 . Many people would not like it , but i bid 21 stinking Million dollars for the broadcast rights ! Come on , have a heart , cut me some slack . I'm clearly taking a big risk as i wounldn't know if i could break even with the amount invested and the amount earned . Dont blame the telcos my friends , blame FIFA .

Poor Starhub and Singtel , being FIFA's fall guy .