The festival of football is over and the anticipated sense of flatness generated by the media void is not as striking as anticipated. Is this due to the distaste lingering after Holland’s rough house approach in Sunday’s final or simply that the excitement that the competition used to generate is no longer evident due to the surfeit of top class football served to us on an almost weekly basis.

The joy gleaned from discovering new talents is minimal and though we often look back to previous competitions with rose tinted spectacles, this World Cup was surely driven more by the needs of FIFA than the host nation, even allowing for the sense of unity the competition provided first for South Africa and in the latter stages via the display of African solidarity evident for Ghana.

With the continued packaging of football as soap opera, the past four weeks provided an ideal opportunity for the new government to determine how and where funding for sport will continue within the dictates of paying for the London Olympics. After only two months in office, substantial cuts have already been made many of which will impact most on impoverished communities. Yet, public attention is already switching to the looming football season rather than focusing on the longer-term strategic issues that will impact on the future of British sport.

Although the South African government can allow itself to bask a little longer in the reflected glory of delivering a well organized sporting mega-event, serious questions will have to be addressed concerning the impact of the tournament and the costs of it for the millions still living in squalor. Although the economies and two nations differ radically, the respective governments have similar decisions to take regarding the finance of sport, yet they must not always be led by headline grabbing ideas which are geared to promoting the Feel Good factor whilst serving as a vital political distractions.