The first Soccer World Cup to be held in Africa can be the glue which binds a continent too often riven by conflict, according to the man in charge of organising the world’s most popular sporting event.
In an interview with Agence France-Presse (AFP), South Africa’s Local Organising Committee chief executive Danny Jordaan said the 2010 tournament was a perfect opportunity to showcase Africa and banish negative stereotypes.
”It is my dream that every African uses this opportunity for the purpose of unity, for stability, for tolerance, for economic development, and for the development of sport in our continent,” said the 56-year-old.
”Clearly football represents hope, football represents joy, football represents achievement, football represents progress for many people on this continent.
”Sport in general has an impact that is uplifting to the people of this continent, especially the spirit, a glue that binds the nation. I think it is in that kind of context that one sees the value and the possibilities that this World Cup brings.”
With less than a thousand days before kick-off, Jordaan is frustrated at having to fend off repeated questions about whether preparations are on time and says doubts are more to do with outdated preconceptions.
”This is an African event … with the perception that is there around the African continent that Africa is not a continent that you can do business with,” says Jordaan, a former African National Congress lawmaker.
”Recently, there are more democratic elections than coups. When last did you hear about a coup? The emphasis is on human rights, on foreign investments and on economic growth.”
The interview at Jordaan’s offices, next to the under-construction Soccer City stadium which will host the final, comes at a time when South Africans are celebrating the Springboks’ victory in the Rugby World Cup.
But while the oval ball remains largely the preserve of the white minority, football’s popularity transcends the racial divide and the national team’s success can be key to nation-building in the post-apartheid era.
”In a situation of conflict, you can use sport to heal. Take our country for example. We were a country at war with itself, war between blacks and whites … The thing that brought this country together was the fact that we hosted the rugby World Cup and Africa Cup of Nations, and we won.
”We also saw it in Germany, where you had since the second World War, two Germanys — East Germany and West Germany. When we [a Fifa delegation] went there in 1990, and spoke to people in East Germany, they felt very distinctly they were a seperate nation. But after the 2006 World Cup, they were just one German nation, rallying behind the successful hosting of the event.”
Jordaan cited the example of war-torn Côte d’Ivoire where the national team has been a universal source of pride.
Chelsea striker Didier ”Drogba took a national team to play in rebel territory, and they played there and for the first time, people got together”.
”You can see how this tournament can be used to bind the nation and the continent.”
The prospects of South Africa uniting behind the national team depends however on how Bafana Bafana perform on the pitch.
South Africa was rated the 17th best team in Africa in the latest Fifa rankings, below Equatorial Guinea and Mozambique, despite hiring Brazil’s World Cup-winning coach Carlos Alberto Parreira.
”We’ve seen it in 1998 when France won the World Cup how it carried the French people behind the World Cup. We saw it in Germany, in Korea, Japan,” says Jordaan.
”So it is therefore important that we must focus, not only on building the stadium, but also building the team.”
Fifa’s recent decision to scrap the system under which the Soccer World Cup rotates between the six continental confederations means it could be decades before Africa gets another chance — adding to pressure on South Africa.
”If we deliver the best ever World Cup successfully for Fifa, then no one in this world can argue that African countries do not have the capabilities to deliver the best event.” – Sapa-AFP