By Maurice Ouderland, CEO of SportsBridge, and International Sports Marketing Expert
Just days ago, Saint Lucia’s Carnival came to an end.
For a few unforgettable days, the island came even more alive than usual. Music, dance and vibrant costumes filled the streets. Visitors arrived from around the world. Hotels, restaurants, artists, designers and local businesses all benefited, while Saint Lucians celebrated something much bigger than a festival. Carnival showcased the country’s culture, creativity, heritage and identity to the world.
No one would argue that Carnival is simply just a festival.
It is a celebration of Saint Lucia’s identity, a source of community pride, a showcase for local talent and culture, and one of the island’s most important tourism and economic engines.
Carnival proves that when a country prepares for a global moment, the benefits extend far beyond the event itself.
The FIFA World Cup needs to be viewed through exactly the same lens.
Too often, the World Cup is seen purely as a football tournament. Nations focus on qualification, coaching, infrastructure and results on the pitch. All of those things matter. But they are only part of the story. Like Carnival, the World Cup can become far more than a sporting event. But only if a country sees the opportunity early and prepares for it in the right way. That time is now.
With the right preparation, it can become a platform to strengthen national pride, attract visitors and investment, deepen international partnerships and tell Saint Lucia’s story to the world.
The recent FIFA World Cup provided powerful evidence of what global attention can do. Cape Verde saw U.S. vacation searches increase by more than 5,000 percent. Curaçao experienced an explosion in international interest, with Google searches reportedly rising from around 1.5 million to 25 million, flight searches increasing from 27,000 to more than 200,000, alongside renewed tourism and investment interest.
The tournament introduced millions of people to countries they had barely considered before.
It is tempting to think these success stories were inevitable. They were not. The world saw the tournament, but it did not see the years of preparation, relationship-building and strategic thinking that came before it. Success appears obvious in hindsight, but vision never does; the road to a tournament like that does not start with the first qualifying match; it begins the moment a nation decides to prepare for it.
The years before a World Cup are not simply years of waiting. They are years in which countries can strengthen their international profile, build new partnerships, attract visitors, deepen trade relationships and tell their story to the world.
That is what I have come to call the Economy of Anticipation.
The idea is simple.
The pursuit of the World Cup can create value long before the tournament begins.
For small island states, that idea may be even more important than it is for larger nations. With the FIFA World Cup now expanded to 48 teams, with discussions already underway about a possible 64-team tournament, the opportunity has never been greater. More nations have a realistic path to qualification, making this the perfect moment to think beyond football and prepare for everything that comes with it.
Saint Lucia understands what it means to compete internationally with limited resources. Like many Caribbean nations, it has learned that success often comes from being strategic rather than simply being bigger.
That is exactly why Curaçao’s recent journey deserves attention.
Like Saint Lucia, Curaçao is a Caribbean island competing in CONCACAF. Its qualification campaign captured headlines, but what interested me most happened long before the results.
Leaning on an unprecedented increase in Google-searches for the island since a friendly game 7-0 loss against Argentina back in 2023, the vision of the Federation was clear from the beginning: the dream must precede the victory.
I had the privilege of contributing to some of those early conversations long before qualification became a reality, sharing perspectives on how sports diplomacy and branding could support Curaçao’s longer-term national ambitions.
The federation recognised early that the road to the World Cup could become more than a football project. It should become a national project.
The campaign became an opportunity to strengthen Curaçao’s international image, stimulate tourism, engage its diaspora and build relationships that extended well beyond football.
And it wasn’t all about qualifying for the World Cup.
Long before Curaçao ultimately reached the World Cup, the island had already strengthened its international visibility and demonstrated what long-term thinking can achieve. Its slogan was: Dare to Dream. Follow the Blue Wave.
Qualification was the icing on the cake, but it did not create the opportunity. Anticipation did!
That lesson is just as relevant for Saint Lucia.
The question is not simply whether Saint Lucia can qualify for a future World Cup.
The question is what Saint Lucia wants that journey to mean.
Could football help strengthen tourism?
Could it introduce more people to Saint Lucian culture?
Could it create new business relationships?
Could it strengthen ties with the diaspora?
Could it encourage young people to dream bigger?
None of those opportunities depend entirely on qualification.
They depend on preparation.
The World Cup itself lasts only a few weeks. Preparation lasts years. That is where the real opportunity lies.
During my work on the Netherlands’ preparations for the FIFA World Cup 2026, I saw the same principle at work.
Rather than waiting for the World Cup draw or even qualification, we started building relationships years in advance. Every host city became a potential partner. Every conversation became an opportunity to explore cooperation in areas such as innovation, sustainability, sports infrastructure, education and trade.
Many of those conversations had very little to do with football.
Football simply opened the door.
Relationships created the value.
For Saint Lucia, the opportunities will naturally look different.
The island’s strengths lie in its people, its culture, its hospitality, its creativity and its global reputation as one of the world’s most beautiful destinations.
Imagine combining those strengths with a long-term sporting ambition, aligning all stakeholders.
Imagine connecting football with tourism promotion, cultural diplomacy, investment missions, youth development and events like Carnival.
The result would not simply be a stronger football programme.
It would be a stronger national story to the world.
That is why I believe countries should stop asking only one question.
“Can we qualify?”
They should also ask:
“If we do, what do we want the world to discover about us?”
“And if we do not, can the anticipation itself build enough local and international interest?”
Because the greatest opportunity is not only the tournament itself.
It is also everything that happens before it, and also after it.
Why today? Because the most valuable conversations, those about tourism, trade, investment, education, culture and partnerships, happen years before the opening match. Waiting until qualification means arriving after many of those opportunities have already passed.
The World Cup does not guarantee success. It guarantees attention. And attention is the world’s most valuable currency.
The next World Cup starts today, as does the one after that. Saint Lucia has already taken an important first step by signing a landmark five-year partnership with Arsenal Football Club as the club’s Official Destination Partner. It is exactly the kind of long-term thinking that can transform football into a platform for tourism, investment and international visibility. The question is no longer whether Saint Lucia should begin preparing, but how ambitious it is willing to be. What comes next?
About the Author
Maurice Ouderland is a global strategist specializing in sports diplomacy, international partnerships, and branding. He advises governments, sports federations, brands, and development organizations on how to transform major sporting events into high-yield platforms for trade, tourism, investment, and long-term national legacy. He’s also the founder of the OneLove campaign.
During the FIFA World Cup 2026 cycle, he served as the Program Director for World Cup 2026 & Sports Diplomacy for the Netherlands’ diplomatic network in North America, while simultaneously providing on-call strategic advisory support to the Federashon Futbòl Kòrsou (FFK) during Curaçao’s historic World Cup campaign.
