Problems in Brazil; a less than vintage line-up in the race to stage the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics; and now the withdrawal of the city chosen to host the 2019 Asian Games.

These are worrying times for mega-event owners.

After a couple of decades when the Great Powers were falling over themselves to stage the glitziest and costliest sporting festivals against a backdrop of economic plenty, the worm, decidedly, has turned.

If reforms to the Olympic Games bidding process had not already worked their way to the top of International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach's "Olympic Agenda 2020", the continuing drip, drip, drip of bad news from around the world over recent weeks must have installed them there by now.

Event owners simply must find ways of making it easier and cheaper for candidate cities and countries to promote and pursue their candidature, bearing in mind that some costs, notably security, cannot be tamed.

The IOC, custodian of the biggest and most complex sporting mega-event of all, needs to blaze a trail by drafting a coherent and, where necessary, radical set of proposals for what should be a landmark Extraordinary Session in Monte Carlo in December.

Vietnam's recent announcement that it planned to give up its hosting rights for the 2019 Asian Games because of economic pressures is symbolically, I think, a great pity.

Vietnam's withdrawal from hosting the 2019 Asian Games is a great pity ©Bloomberg via Getty Images



That a country ripped apart by the first war of the TV age should be ready, half a century later, to act as a playground for the athletes of the planet's most populous continent, struck me as altogether a good thing.

Too bad that the vision has turned out, for now, to be a mirage.

Hanoi's withdrawal also seems to have sown an inordinate amount of confusion over who is likely to be in the running to replace it when a decision is taken in September.

I have seen at least five nations – Indonesia, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, China and Japan – mentioned as possible candidates, although anyone who steps into the breach in these circumstances is likely to try to drive a hard bargain.

I suspect that the list, ultimately, will be shorter than this.

Japan, after all, already has the small matter of the 2019 Rugby World Cup and the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games to preoccupy it.

And as Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) secretary-general Randhir Singh has already pointed out: "We have to decide who will be able to deliver, keeping in mind the time factor."

Bear in mind that this is a big, big competition we are talking about: this year's 17th Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea consists of 437 events in 36 sports.

The Asian Games, heading for Incheon this summer, is near enough twice the size of the Commonwealth Games ©Getty Images



By way of comparison, the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow is comprised of 261 events in 17 sports – not much more than half the size.

Given all this, I am rather surprised not yet to have heard mentioned the name of what strikes me as the most straightforward and sensible replacement venue.

Step forward Doha, capital of the fabulously wealthy and ambitious Gulf state of Qatar.

Doha, for one thing, has done it all before: it hosted the Games in 2006, an event that featured 39 sports and more than 9,500 athletes.

In the Aspire Academy, it boasts a complex of indoor venues that remains one of the wonders of the modern sporting world.

Doha's Aspire Academy shows it has exactly the right assets to stage a successful and cost-effective Asian Games in 2019 ©Bongarts/Getty Images



As a result, I would think that infrastructural spending to ready the city for the 2019 Games would be minimal – an important consideration given the time and financial constraints.

As in 2006, when the Games took place in December, timing of the event could be set so as to minimise discomfort arising from Qatar's desert climate.

I would think that a Doha Games would also attract significantly more media coverage from outside Asia than is customary.

This is because of Qatar's status as host of the 2022 FIFA World Cup; assuming it retains this status, some European and American media might be drawn to attend the Games as part of the process of monitoring preparations for this great global tournament.

A solution, then, to this particular mega-event problem should not be beyond reach.

Ameliorating the bigger picture might prove altogether more demanding.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.