FIFA's early promise of a financial bonanza now looks empty, and “performance anxiety” is starting to pervade the Rainbow Nation

In contrast to former host nations, most rosy expectations have centred on what the event might do for South Africa economically and socially rather than in our spanking new stadiums. Any home advantage accruing to our players is largely discounted. On their current form, “Bafana Bafana” (literally, “The Boys, The Boys”) are treated as something of a national joke. Soccer is South Africa’s number one black sport by far, yet there is none of that English frenzy about “Our Boys”, even though the team nickname would lend itself to such chauvinism. With a sober outlook from fans, any win by Bafana Bafana will be hailed as a triumph, while qualifying for the quarterfinals would unleash unbridled township revelry.

A curious fact, reflected in the media until recently, is that this total lack of expectation for success on the field has been matched (in almost directly inverse proportion) by a credulous anticipation of colossal financial benefits. In many ways South Africa, and its media, still suffers from what the Australians used to call “cultural cringe”. Like callow provincials, we swallowed FIFA’s hard sell of a financial bonanza and were dazzled by the prospect of fleetingly occupying the global TV limelight. Nevertheless, now there is an almost audible gulp of collective nerves.

Six years ago when South Africa won the right to host the 2010 World Cup, with Nelson Mandela as our super-star lobbyist, there were unanimous hosannas in all the local media. The award was interpreted as a huge vote of confidence that a mere 10 years after our first democratic election in 1994 the country had proven its stability and reliability on the world stage. This euphoria extended in many local papers to comparisons with the triumphant 1995 Rugby World Cup – immortalised in Clint Eastwood’s film, Invictus – when Mandela had famously donned the controversial green and gold Springbok jersey. That had done much to promote national reconciliation in this divided country. But hankerings for a replay of those glory days were projected in predominately white-read newspapers, such as those in Tony O’Reilly’s Independent Group, which includes the Cape Times and the Johannesburg Star. Black-read newspapers, such as The Sowetan or the City Press, are less starry-eyed about the potential of sport to bring peace and goodwill between the rich and desperately poor.

All the same, until this year the South African media across the board, and across the racial divide, have tended to see miraculous economic spin-offs from hosting the World Cup: an unrealistic anticipation that Business Day, the only serious national daily, recently decried as “PR inflation”. In 2004 the South African bid-committee boasted that the World Cup would bring in $3.1billion and create 160,000 jobs. There was little explanation for such estimates. Even so the figures were widely reported without close examination. These flashy claims have so far proved illusory.

In the past few months our economic experts and analysts have, in fact, been rowing back fast on their optimistic predictions. Even the expected number of foreign visitors has been dramatically scaled back. For example, the National Parks Board, in charge of game reserves such as the Kruger National Park, had agreed with FIFA to allocate 30 per cent of its inventory for World Cup sight-seers. Last month they released a massive 14,000 “bed nights” back on to the market. One Citibank analyst pointed out to Business Report, the supplement carried in Independent Group dailies, that the major direct financial benefits – chiefly TV and marketing rights – all go to FIFA. Yet FIFA’s financial liabilities remain minimal, off-loaded on to the hosts, although it announced in May that it was injecting £67m into the project to ensure the host nation was ready on time. Economic predictions made after major sporting events, said the Citibank expert, are usually more downbeat than those made beforehand.

Now a new sense of unease can be seen in the reporting of an entirely different set of uncheckable statistics. The South African Government announced that it would fast-track a new law on human trafficking, although this had all the hallmarks of a publicity stunt in response to the spate of media warnings about an invasion of foreign prostitutes and child molesters. Some newspapers came up with a figure of 40,000 extra “ladies of the night”, allegedly mostly to be imported hurriedly from Eastern Europe. At the beginning of March the Cape Times hiked this total as high as 100,000. Had sub-editors done their sums they would have realised that this would amount to a scorecard of roughly one foreign tart to every three foreign fans. Meanwhile, The Sowetan has been running a torrent of stories about a “feared” influx of paedophiles and sex tourists preying on innocent schoolchildren. With South Africa leading the world in AIDS deaths, the UK Guardian’s story that the British Government would donate 42 million condoms was given blanket coverage. All of which suggests that the naive euphoria of the last few years has worn off and is being replaced by a growing sense of “performance anxiety”.

No sight of squalor for the visitors

The 20,000 poor, often unemployed, residents fought this apartheidstyle “forcible re-location” with protests and riots, even court battles. The result is that the visiting football fans will still see plenty of flimsy shacks, then a smaller section of brand new blocks of flats. The latter, however, won’t be occupied by the poor but by the aspirant middle-class paying “market related” rents. The visitor will see hoardings that boast, “Slums shall be abolished!” What the slogans really should announce is: “Slums shall be removed – out of sight.”

This is one of the more disturbing aspects of a relatively poor country hosting a mega-event such as the World Cup. The pressure is on to compete with rich countries, like previous hosts such as France and Germany, and prove we, too, can put on a ritzy spectacular. That pressure comes from FIFA, and the South African Government (until fairly recently a liberation movement) complies. What this essentially involves is pretending that we are a wealthy country. On the whole the local press collude with this massive sham, flattered to have been chosen and anxious, like all South Africans, to present a good face to the world.

The selection process for the stadium in Cape Town, for example, reveals that image was the vital factor, overriding original criteria that included a requirement to develop more deprived areas. The already existing stadium in Athlone, a “Coloured” residential zone, was punted early and hard. A month after the visit by FIFA officials in October 2005, the local project director for the 2010 World Cup declared that having World Cup matches in Athlone would be a catalyst for other improvements. But early in 2006 it was announced that, instead, a new stadium would be built in Green Point, a white suburb. This involved demolishing the old sports stadium and building an entirely new one at huge cost. The same project director who had only months before enthused about Athlone now revealed that the visiting FIFA delegation had declared that Green Point was the obvious choice from their perspective, “to really showcase Cape Town to an audience of billions of people”. The Mail & Guardian, the feisty investigative weekly, quoted a senior government source as saying that, during the 2005 inspection, FIFA officials objected that the low-cost housing round Athlone stadium would not form a suitable backdrop. One FIFA delegate is reported to have complained: “A billion television viewers don’t want to see shacks and poverty on that scale.”

In a way, this football gala, heralded by FIFA as a first in a developing country, is a confidence trick. The living conditions of the poor majority are to be kept off TV screens. The financial imperative of marketing football triumphs and reality must be sanitised. Sadly, we’ll probably pander to this with a cavalcade of bland “Lion King” clichés. But presenting a film-set façade will not, in the long run, help. It’s a mirage, and – worse – self-delusion, too. Yet it is an illusion that most of the South African press, probably out of misplaced patriotism, has failed to examine. On the other hand, the South African media have not taken kindly to FIFA’s bullying. The stringent rules about marketing and “ambush advertising” have caused a great deal of antagonism. These dictatorial rules will also affect the thousands of “informal traders” in each host city: i.e. poor people who sell their modest wares at road intersections or from stalls on city pavements. Those within the wide exclusion zones of the stadiums will be swept off the streets. But it is FIFA’s blatant attempt at press censorship that has really riled the South African media. Negotiations have dragged on for well over a year to try to change the draconian conditions for press accreditation. This includes one clause that grotesquely imitates a notorious old apartheid law: that the accredited journalist may not write anything that would bring FIFA into disrepute. A photo of an official accepting a bribe would be, well, offside.

Outrageous press restrictions

Given the low expectations for Bafana Bafana on the field, probably the greatest hope among South Africans is that the international press will descend here for the tournament with an open mind. But to imagine that some of the British tabloids will actually use this event to take a fresh look at the country, rather than arrive with their stories and clichés about Africa already pre-packed, is a tall order. For example, will the Daily Mail, which stands out in its bitter vituperation for post-apartheid South Africa, stop trying to turn the clock back to an era of whites-only rule? In this, as in much else, we are still quite provincial and trusting. But that, like our often gauche media, is part of South Africa’s unruly charm. The country really is excited in a way that most former World Cup hosts could only pretend.