A six-member delegation from the Federation of International Football Associations (Fifa) arrived in South Africa on Thursday to evaluate our bid for the 2006 World Cup. The country will be putting on an all-out show to prove to the delegation leader, American lawyer Alan Rothenberg, and his team that we deserve to host the spectacle.
Fifa president Sepp Blatter has already expressed his feelings that it is “Africa’s turn”, as the World Cup has never been held on this continent. We believe he is right.
The soccer World Cup would unite the country as never before. When Nelson Mandela cheered on captain Francois Pienaar’s team to victory in rugby’s quadrennial showcase in 1995, the Rainbow Nation came together to celebrate triumph in a sport previously regarded as the white man’s preserve.
Thousands of black youngsters took inspiration from wing Chester Williams, giving a boost to rugby’s development programme that could never have been achieved by monetary investment alone.
In 1996, when Mandela donned the Bafana Bafana shirt and helped captain Neil Tovey hoist the African Cup of Nations trophy, thousands of white youngsters – raised to support Manchester United and Liverpool – began to dream of playing for Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates. Hosting the World Cup would make concrete the fragile bridges built by these two events.
The showpiece would also bring in billions of rands to the South African economy. Thousands of jobs would be created – both directly in arranging the Cup and in catering for the flood of international soccer supporters the event brings. The spill-over effects in long- term tourism are hard to calculate; but it can be assumed that happy soccer tourists would tell their friends of the beauty of Africa and encourage them to visit the southern tip.
The World Cup would not require major investment in infrastructure – we already have nine world-class stadiums, served by world-class airports, and others will be upgraded or built in time.
We have the weather patterns – especially during our winter months, when the tournament would be held – to ensure conditions ideal for fast, exciting football.
One of the stumbling blocks standing in the way of South Africa’s bid is the high crime rate – a fact gleefully highlighted by rival bidders in England and Germany.
The need to present our best face to the world would give the government an irresistible spur to finally grasp the nettle. And the jobs created by the World Cup would relieve one of the major causes of crime: unemployment.
England and Germany are regarded, along with South Africa, as the leading candidates. Both have hosted the event before. Brazil does not have the necessary infrastructure and would struggle to meet the deadlines for upgrading its stadiums.
It is Africa’s turn. Morocco’s bid has merit, but South Africa has the facilities, the weather and the people to make the 2006 World Cup the best ever.
We hope Blatter and his executive bear these factors in mind when they make their decision on July 6. We deserve it.
Cellular phonies
It would take a sweet mouth indeed to not have a sour taste left behind by the process that led to the South African Telecommunications Authority’s (Satra’s) recommendations for the country’s third cellular licence.
It is not, of course, unexpected in high- profile multibillion-rand tenders for public services like this one that there will be controversy, infighting – and, ultimately, whingeing losers. But this particular decision comes with so many unanswered questions that either Satra owes the public an explanation, or the government must be pressed to exercise its prerogative to intervene.
How, for instance, can Satra account for ignoring two separate and expert reports that it commissioned, reports that were in substantial agreement on the relative soundness or otherwise of the various consortia – but in the end were apparently out of step with the authority?
How does it square that Satra chair Nape Maepa was forced to recuse himself from the adjudications, when two other councillors – with demonstrably closer ties to bidding consortia – were given a clean bill of ethical health? And why was the recommendation finally given to a consortium whose long-range guarantees on black empowerment – the stated sine qua non of the tender process – are, as we point out in this edition, so compromised as to be, arguably, meaningless.
Maybe these and the gnatlike myriad other questions that have haunted the process will finally be answered in the public arena, and maybe they will not.
But if they are not addressed the already tarnished international and local image of South Africa will suffer serious – and possibly structural – damage.
This is not the first time the independence or the credibility of statutory bodies, and bodies awarding huge public tenders, has been questioned; and it is hardly an exaggeration to characterise the new South Africa as teetering on the brink of being perceived internationally as another banana republic, where kickbacks and Big Men and the form of democratic process rather than its substance are the order of the day.
It is a perception that is being especially nurtured by the emergence of cliques close to government – or burnishing struggle credentials – in consortia bidding to wrest every government contract or licence from the public domain.
It is almost inevitable that if this is the way that black empowerment is going to be interpreted – as the enrichment of the few, reborn as capitalists – that corruption, or at least the perception of corruption, will be the result. There are simply too many old favours and social connections to those making the decisions.
We understand the need to work towards the transfer of the economy. But there is a crucial distinction that needs to be borne in mind between empowerment of the many and enrichment of the few. We see few signs of anything but lip service in that direction.