Post by saphilip on Jun 5, 2011 16:22:00 GMT
Next weekend marks the first anniversary of South Africa hosting the 2010 World Cup and this time a year ago the country was gripped in World Cup fever – even non-football lovers were gripped by it as virtually every office, street corner and major highway displayed its own world cup theme.
Virtually every informal street trader was making money selling any world cup related item – be it flags, replica jerseys, scarves, soccer balls, mascots and anything else that had a world cup theme. For months the country had been encouraged to pitch up to the office every Friday wearing a football jersey.
In short the country had been gearing up for the biggest sporting event in its history from late 2009 until 11 June 2010 and then suddenly, 6 weeks later it was gone – just like that. As Spain the Netherlands were preparing for the final people were starting to take down the flags from their offices, street traders were starting to look for other things to sell - mainly the hangers and cheap jewellery that they had been selling a year ago – while shops were removing all WC items from their shelves.
So a year on what has been the legacy of the World Cup to SA and did we truly benefit from it?
I must state right now that these are my personal views based on what I read, observed and heard after speaking to other people. I should also add that I never actually went to a game – and there were many reasons for it, with cost and the hassle of getting tickets not the least of them. I have no doubt that other people may have differing views to mine but, in light of what happened at FIFA in recent weeks, I feel it is still worth sharing my views with users on this m/b.
As for the finals I don’t think many people will disagree that we as host country did a very good job hosting it. I can say with pride that it went off with barely a hitch, it mostly went off smoothly while crime was anon-issue (and yes I accept that there was petty crime but none of the violence that had been anticipated by many). Some fans tried to blame the standard of football on the pitch to the fact that we hosted it but that would be unfair. We cannot control what happens on the pitch, only what happened off of it – and on that score we more than succeeded.
But a year on can we truthfully say that SA has benefitted?
If the WC had gone off smoothly and the nation was united for an all too brief period then I am sad to say that things went back to normal within weeks of the WC. Within weeks teachers and public servants went on a violent and prolonged strike. Race relations, an all too sensitive issue in this country for obvious reasons, has taken a huge dive this year - thanks to hot heads on both sides of the political spectrum. Many towns are up in arms over service delivery, corruption and a host of other problems – and more and more populists are seeing the Zimbabwe way as the only solution to SA’s problems.
Maybe we were all unrealistic with our expectations but it is sad that the country has gone back to many of its old ways. Was it all an illusion – possibly it was but I have my doubts, you couldn’t fake what you had seen before the WC fo0r as long as it lasted. Maybe expectations far exceeded reality and this leads to the next problem.
For sure SA needed some new or upgraded stadiums while our infrastructure needed jacking up but right now we have left with some expensive white elephants in the form of a Gautrain service that is too expensive and fails to service more than a handful of residents in Greater Jo’burg and some rather expensive stadiums that are costing more and more to maintain.
While I agree that we needed some stadiums in places like Port Elizabeth but there are 3 stadiums that have become expensive luxuries – and it will probably be cheaper to demolish them than maintain them – while the jury is out on a couple of others.
Simply put we should made more use of the rugby stadiums in Cape Town & Durban and should never have considered having stadiums in the Lowveld and Far North where we don’t have big franchises. In short money that could have been spent on better service delivery was spent on building and maintaining stadiums that, as good as they look, are adding no value to the country.
However the biggest legacy has to be what FIFA got out of us and what it left for us in return. Probably the best way to sum it up is to mention a cartoon that appeared by a man called Zapiro in the Sunday Times – SA’s biggest selling paper - shortly after the WC had finished and reports came out how much billions (all tax free of course) that FIFA took away from SA. The cartoon had Sepp Blatter looking out of a plane leaving SA holding tons of cash and looking down at SA and saying “so long suckers”.
And that, sadly, sums up FIFA’s attitude towards SA before, during and after the World Cup – they saw us as their tax free cash cow, whilst treating the country as a province of FIFA.
Many of you saw what happened when a group of women were arrested for daring to wear orange mini dresses, with a small Bavaria tag at the bottom, at a match involving Holland. Their heinous crime? They had dared to ambush market Budweiser and FIFA, in an effort to keep the peace, ordered the local police to arrest the ring leaders.
But this was the tip of the iceberg.
Informal traders had their good confiscated for daring to sell so called WC products such as key rings with the SA flag without FIFA’s approvals. Shop owners near stadiums were suddenly told to remove signs such as World Cup or Soccer Cup from their windows as they were infringing on some sacred FIFA trade mark – when most of us thought they were merely stating the obvious. Certain billboards advertising rival products had to be taken down near key routes, in case they offended the Great God FIFA, while many B&B owners had their fingers burnt when they signed up with FIFA. Most official merchandise, handled conveniently by Blatter’s son-in-law, was made in countries like China – instead of local manufacturers.
In short SA traders hardly benefitted from it – and while tourism figures did go up June last year the figures were nowhere near what was expected in 2007. For sure the world recession hardly helped but forecasts of 500,000 plus fans was always on the wild side.
So who benefitted?
Real Madrid & Barcelona definitely – these are the 2 best teams in the world at the moment (despite what Man Utd fans may feel) and both have benefitted from Spain’s recent achievements.
The SA football team have improved. Yes we may not have qualified for the 2nd round (which was always going to be a big if) but we hardly disgraced ourselves – and there is no doubt that the team has taken huge leaps forward from the shambles that was the SA team at the end of 2009.
But the biggest winners were FIFA, and Blatter in particular, as their troughs just got bigger and bigger. I was not surprised that Russia and Qatar were awarded the WC of 2018 & 2022 because money talks. Nor was I surprised that Sepp Blatter was re-elected unopposed and coming out smelling like roses like he did. The fact is that he has championed himself as the spokesman for football in the developing world and too many people believe him. Even SAFA thinks he is doing a great job – conveniently forgetting his legacy of the 2010 WC.
Soon after Russia & Qatar won their WC bids I flew to India for a business trip and whilst at the airport, waiting for my flight, I bought the book “Foul” by Andrew Jennings. When I bought it the cashier remarked “oh this is the book that cost England the WC bid” – to which I replied “no but it does give the reasons why they lost”.
Sadly too many people feel that England’s objections were all down to sour grapes and bad media reporting. For sure, sections of the English press hardly endured themselves with BS scare stories such as killer snakes, killer diseases and killer gangs targeting certain sectors of SA, so you could hardly expect many South Africans to have positive views of English reporting. That said it would be too short sighted to ignore what is happening at FIFA and even more short sighted to ignore how FIFA treated SA a year ago.
So did SA lose out in the end?
My view is both yes and no. For sure I would have loved us to impose more of our terms to hosting it and I did object to the tax free money that FIFA took out of us. I also think we should have been more careful before building all these stadiums (even if it was a fantastic job) and local traders should have had a bigger share of the FIFA pie.
That said the WC did prove to all doubters that we could do it – and we could host a 5 week tournament as a unified country. It was great 5 week party – and I won’t forget the atmosphere and feelings in the country in the weeks and months leading up to the WC either.
A year on from that I still believe we should have hosted the WC and that it was the right decision – it’s just a pity that I think FIFA got more out of it than the average South African.
Virtually every informal street trader was making money selling any world cup related item – be it flags, replica jerseys, scarves, soccer balls, mascots and anything else that had a world cup theme. For months the country had been encouraged to pitch up to the office every Friday wearing a football jersey.
In short the country had been gearing up for the biggest sporting event in its history from late 2009 until 11 June 2010 and then suddenly, 6 weeks later it was gone – just like that. As Spain the Netherlands were preparing for the final people were starting to take down the flags from their offices, street traders were starting to look for other things to sell - mainly the hangers and cheap jewellery that they had been selling a year ago – while shops were removing all WC items from their shelves.
So a year on what has been the legacy of the World Cup to SA and did we truly benefit from it?
I must state right now that these are my personal views based on what I read, observed and heard after speaking to other people. I should also add that I never actually went to a game – and there were many reasons for it, with cost and the hassle of getting tickets not the least of them. I have no doubt that other people may have differing views to mine but, in light of what happened at FIFA in recent weeks, I feel it is still worth sharing my views with users on this m/b.
As for the finals I don’t think many people will disagree that we as host country did a very good job hosting it. I can say with pride that it went off with barely a hitch, it mostly went off smoothly while crime was anon-issue (and yes I accept that there was petty crime but none of the violence that had been anticipated by many). Some fans tried to blame the standard of football on the pitch to the fact that we hosted it but that would be unfair. We cannot control what happens on the pitch, only what happened off of it – and on that score we more than succeeded.
But a year on can we truthfully say that SA has benefitted?
If the WC had gone off smoothly and the nation was united for an all too brief period then I am sad to say that things went back to normal within weeks of the WC. Within weeks teachers and public servants went on a violent and prolonged strike. Race relations, an all too sensitive issue in this country for obvious reasons, has taken a huge dive this year - thanks to hot heads on both sides of the political spectrum. Many towns are up in arms over service delivery, corruption and a host of other problems – and more and more populists are seeing the Zimbabwe way as the only solution to SA’s problems.
Maybe we were all unrealistic with our expectations but it is sad that the country has gone back to many of its old ways. Was it all an illusion – possibly it was but I have my doubts, you couldn’t fake what you had seen before the WC fo0r as long as it lasted. Maybe expectations far exceeded reality and this leads to the next problem.
For sure SA needed some new or upgraded stadiums while our infrastructure needed jacking up but right now we have left with some expensive white elephants in the form of a Gautrain service that is too expensive and fails to service more than a handful of residents in Greater Jo’burg and some rather expensive stadiums that are costing more and more to maintain.
While I agree that we needed some stadiums in places like Port Elizabeth but there are 3 stadiums that have become expensive luxuries – and it will probably be cheaper to demolish them than maintain them – while the jury is out on a couple of others.
Simply put we should made more use of the rugby stadiums in Cape Town & Durban and should never have considered having stadiums in the Lowveld and Far North where we don’t have big franchises. In short money that could have been spent on better service delivery was spent on building and maintaining stadiums that, as good as they look, are adding no value to the country.
However the biggest legacy has to be what FIFA got out of us and what it left for us in return. Probably the best way to sum it up is to mention a cartoon that appeared by a man called Zapiro in the Sunday Times – SA’s biggest selling paper - shortly after the WC had finished and reports came out how much billions (all tax free of course) that FIFA took away from SA. The cartoon had Sepp Blatter looking out of a plane leaving SA holding tons of cash and looking down at SA and saying “so long suckers”.
And that, sadly, sums up FIFA’s attitude towards SA before, during and after the World Cup – they saw us as their tax free cash cow, whilst treating the country as a province of FIFA.
Many of you saw what happened when a group of women were arrested for daring to wear orange mini dresses, with a small Bavaria tag at the bottom, at a match involving Holland. Their heinous crime? They had dared to ambush market Budweiser and FIFA, in an effort to keep the peace, ordered the local police to arrest the ring leaders.
But this was the tip of the iceberg.
Informal traders had their good confiscated for daring to sell so called WC products such as key rings with the SA flag without FIFA’s approvals. Shop owners near stadiums were suddenly told to remove signs such as World Cup or Soccer Cup from their windows as they were infringing on some sacred FIFA trade mark – when most of us thought they were merely stating the obvious. Certain billboards advertising rival products had to be taken down near key routes, in case they offended the Great God FIFA, while many B&B owners had their fingers burnt when they signed up with FIFA. Most official merchandise, handled conveniently by Blatter’s son-in-law, was made in countries like China – instead of local manufacturers.
In short SA traders hardly benefitted from it – and while tourism figures did go up June last year the figures were nowhere near what was expected in 2007. For sure the world recession hardly helped but forecasts of 500,000 plus fans was always on the wild side.
So who benefitted?
Real Madrid & Barcelona definitely – these are the 2 best teams in the world at the moment (despite what Man Utd fans may feel) and both have benefitted from Spain’s recent achievements.
The SA football team have improved. Yes we may not have qualified for the 2nd round (which was always going to be a big if) but we hardly disgraced ourselves – and there is no doubt that the team has taken huge leaps forward from the shambles that was the SA team at the end of 2009.
But the biggest winners were FIFA, and Blatter in particular, as their troughs just got bigger and bigger. I was not surprised that Russia and Qatar were awarded the WC of 2018 & 2022 because money talks. Nor was I surprised that Sepp Blatter was re-elected unopposed and coming out smelling like roses like he did. The fact is that he has championed himself as the spokesman for football in the developing world and too many people believe him. Even SAFA thinks he is doing a great job – conveniently forgetting his legacy of the 2010 WC.
Soon after Russia & Qatar won their WC bids I flew to India for a business trip and whilst at the airport, waiting for my flight, I bought the book “Foul” by Andrew Jennings. When I bought it the cashier remarked “oh this is the book that cost England the WC bid” – to which I replied “no but it does give the reasons why they lost”.
Sadly too many people feel that England’s objections were all down to sour grapes and bad media reporting. For sure, sections of the English press hardly endured themselves with BS scare stories such as killer snakes, killer diseases and killer gangs targeting certain sectors of SA, so you could hardly expect many South Africans to have positive views of English reporting. That said it would be too short sighted to ignore what is happening at FIFA and even more short sighted to ignore how FIFA treated SA a year ago.
So did SA lose out in the end?
My view is both yes and no. For sure I would have loved us to impose more of our terms to hosting it and I did object to the tax free money that FIFA took out of us. I also think we should have been more careful before building all these stadiums (even if it was a fantastic job) and local traders should have had a bigger share of the FIFA pie.
That said the WC did prove to all doubters that we could do it – and we could host a 5 week tournament as a unified country. It was great 5 week party – and I won’t forget the atmosphere and feelings in the country in the weeks and months leading up to the WC either.
A year on from that I still believe we should have hosted the WC and that it was the right decision – it’s just a pity that I think FIFA got more out of it than the average South African.