Delhi's crisis-hit Commonwealth Games is in danger of becoming the coming-out party nobody wants to attend. As the Indian prime minister tomorrow prepares to meet the chairman of the Commonwealth Games Federation in a bid to salvage the event, there is far more at stake than sport.

It has become almost obligatory to refer to any major sporting event held in a fast developing nation as a coming-out party. For emerging economies, a bid to stage one of sport's major events has become a necessary box to check, the way to cement your arrival on the world stage and prove you are open for business.

It is no coincidence that all four of the so-called Bric countries – the fast‑growing economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China – have hosted or will host major events in the space of six years. The Olympics came to China in 2008, the Commonwealth Games to India in 2010, Brazil will host the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016, while Russia is pouring unprecedented funds into the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and is favourite to win the race to host the World Cup in 2018.

It is the thinking that underpins Qatar's bold bid to stage the 2022 World Cup and enabled South Africa to bring the World Cup to the continent for the first time. As the tournament progressed, an increasingly confident Danny Jordaan, chief executive of the organising committee, talked more about the boost to South African trade and the country's international image than he did about the football.

All produce studies and statistics to show the supposed economic boost of hosting a successful major event, but more important to the politicians that bankroll the bids is changing the way they are perceived in the rest of the world. And that is why global news reports of stray dogs, stagnant water, workers urinating in public and human faeces being found at the unfinished village where the athletes will live sit uneasily with the image India had hoped its £2bn investment in the Commonwealth Games would project.

The Beijing Olympics in 2008 set the template. For all the pre-G ames concerns about human rights protests and air pollution, it was widely portrayed as the moment at which the east turned to face the west on its own terms. No expense was spared in ensuring it was the most spectacular – and most tightly controlled – Olympics in history.

For the Brazilian president, Lula, winning the 2016 Olympic Games for Rio demonstrated his country had arrived at the top table as an economic superpower, and was proof that it could be trusted to deliver. "We are not a second-rate country, we are a first-rate country, that is what this victory means," he said in Copenhagen last October, when Brazil won the right to host the Games. "All those who thought we had no ability to govern this country will now know we can host the Olympics."

It is a mindset that has been actively encouraged by the international governing bodies – particularly the International Olympic Committee and Fifa – that derive their power from their ability to encourage governments around the world to enter into ever more competitive bidding processes. In a time of austerity, it is perhaps only those economies that are continuing to grow – and can justify the expense as essentially a huge marketing campaign – that can afford the outlay required to host the Olympics. The former Olympics minister Tessa Jowell once admitted that London would "almost certainly" not have bid for the Games in the teeth of a recession.

The IOC and Fifa encourage bidding nations to talk up the legacy that will be left behind and require them to underwrite huge investment in infrastructure programmes to build venues, improve accommodation and construct new transport links. There is also a commercial rationale, which bidding nations have not been slow to spot. Multinational sponsors now want to target the emerging economies around the world rather than battling over one or two market share points in the oversaturated west.

There could be intriguing implications for the race to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. The former looks like coming down to a choice between a solid financial bet with stadiums that are largely built (England) and a bold attempt to take the event into new territory and use the World Cup to turbo-charge investment in stadiums and facilities (Russia). In the wake of two bold but risky statements in taking its flagship tournament and cash cow to South Africa and Brazil, Fifa could play it safe. Or the taste of adventure may have emboldened it for more.

Likewise, the race for 2022 pits a solid commercial choice (USA) against a pioneering candidate with deep pockets that has used the campaign to project itself onto the world stage (Qatar) and a bid that combines elements of both (Australia).

South Africa – for all the questions that linger long after the Fifa circus packed up and went home – is seen as an example of what happens when it goes right. As soon as the World Cup was over, the bandwagon for a South African city to bid for the 2020 Olympics started rolling.

And while they may yet turn it round in the weeks to come, Delhi could be seen as the most visible example of what happens when it goes wrong. For Delhi, the £2bn invested in the Commonwealth Games was supposed to act as a dry run for a bid for the 2020 Olympics and those plans now appear to lie in tatters. The events of the past few days may act as a reminder that having the eyes of the world upon you is not always a good thing.