THE football World Cup may give South Africa’s economy an astonishing extra 0.5% of growth, according to a recent report by Grant Thornton, a firm of accountants. That is quite a chunk of the country’s forecast 3% rate for the year. Some 373,000 foreigners are now expected during the tournament, which kicks off on June 11th. On average they will stay for 18 days, go to five matches and spend 30,200 rand (nearly $4,000) each.

Compelling figures for statistic mad football fans. But South Africa’s government is also taking them seriously because the same firm wrote a similar report on the cup’s impact on South Africa just before the world financial crash two years ago.

There were fears that the recession might shrink the economic benefits of the tournament to South Africa. In fact, if Grant Thornton is right, the country has little to worry about. In 2007 the firm expected 483,000 foreign visitors, so that number is sharply down. Moreover, only about 11,300 ticket-holders are from African countries outside South Africa, surely a disappointment to the organisers. But each visitor is now expected to make more of his (or less often her) trip, staying a bit longer and shelling out a third more cash.

So the total effect on South Africa’s economy should be roughly the same, with about 93 billion rand ($12.4 billion) injected, most of that having been generated before this year. Tourism should account for 16% of the final total. Much of the rest will come from the central government’s spending on infrastructure.

Very nice for South Africa, perhaps. But South Africans themselves are grumbling about the eye-wateringly large amounts of money that FIFA, the world football body that is the monopoly organiser, is poised to make, even though South Africa is bearing most of the cost. FIFA is responsible only for the prize money paid to the teams along with the cost of their travel and preparation, which amounted to just $279m in Germany, where the tournament last took place, in 2006. This week FIFA said it would contribute an extra $100m to the South Africans to ensure that all the facilities are ready in time.

Yet the event’s main direct benefits, from television and marketing rights, all go to FIFA. According to Citi, the research arm of Citibank, FIFA’s profit in Germany came to $1.8 billion, equivalent to 0.7% of South Africa’s GDP. FIFA will recycle much of that money into football development worldwide. Nonetheless, even a bit of it would help clear up some of the country’s festering shanty towns.