Football clubs have become the status symbols of newly rich tycoons from Russia or the Middle East, and international competitions, especially the World Cup, have become occasions to bolster the prestige, and sometimes even the legitimacy, of national governments. Such events reinforce the tendency of modern political regimes, dictatorships as well as democracies, to measure themselves in monumental building projects – giant new stadiums, gargantuan shopping malls, huge conference halls – which are sometimes needed, but often are not.