So Fifa has been forced to issue an apology to Danny Jordaan and the 2010 World Cup local organising committee (LOC) after president Sepp Blatter was “misquoted” when he named a list of countries that could step into the breach should the tournament be taken away from South Africa.
Blatter was heard telling the BBC’s Inside Sport TV show (though the quotes appeared on BBC radio) that any of the United States, England, Japan, Spain, Mexico or Australia could step in at any time to host the event.
What was not made clear, though, was that he was talking in respect of a natural disaster or other such tragedy, rather than issues of crime, infrastructure and facilities. That part was conveniently edited out by the programme’s editors.
And I have no doubt that the version of events as stated above, offered by way of explanation by Fifa director of communications Markus Siegler, are in fact correct, but unfortunately the damage to the LOC and the country’s reputation has already been done.
As I’ve stated before, perhaps the most difficult aspect of South Africa’s hosting of the 2010 World Cup will be managing the almost frenzied media fixation with what could go wrong.
Forget building stadiums and infrastructure. Those are controllable problems, but what is far more difficult to manage is the international media’s biased, jealous and in some cases racist assertion that this tournament will be a disaster, because an African country simply cannot host an event that would match European, American or Australian standards.
What stories such as these do is plant a seed of doubt in the international community’s minds about our progress, ability and ultimate success. Those fans who may be hoping that their nation qualify for the event so that they can visit the country may be now wondering whether they want to.
In the myopic international media’s mind, it is as if we have failed before we have hardly begun. Have you read one article out there that has taken a really close look at what is being done in preparation for the tournament and reported the straight facts, rather than simply relay the spin from the LOC and Fifa, or jump on any negative comment, no matter who utters it?
Of course, it does not help when the communications director for the LOC is virtually impossible to get hold of, or when the general media relations around official press days leave a lot to be desired.
The press remains the LOC, Fifa and South Africa’s greatest friend, or greatest enemy, in this regard, depending on which way the pendulum swings. The temptation from within the media will always be to print the negative, because, as the saying goes, sensationalism sells.
So, knowing that the knives are out and that our international credibility and that of the tournament rely on fostering good relations with the media, you would think more would be done to show them exactly what progress is being made.
At a recent media day, we were handed a CD that featured what looked like a few pictures of people a cocktail party, along with a random selection of very mish-mashed looking documents that had obviously been copied over from another disc, with no real explanation of what they were.
Coming from the LOC and Fifa, it was an embarrassingly amateurish effort. What they should have done is load that media pack with material the journalists could actually use to spread the good word.
If they cannot get this relationship right, even at this early stage, then we are in trouble and will become cannon fodder for an international media who are, in quite a large number, praying for us to fail, so that they can say to Fifa, “We told them so,” and give Blatter, with whom many have had a testy relationship, the proverbial two fingers.
Nick Said is editor: special projects for Kick Off magazine