2010 World Cup Effect on Economic Change in South Africa

2010 World Cup & Fast React on South African Economy


Other like all issues construction and traffic jams are that the World Cup has come to mean for many South Africans, leaving the hype to organisers and PR companies. Host cities started the process of urban rejuvenation years ago, but apart from the sheer flamboyance of the skyline altering stadiums, little else is close to completion. Durban’s central business district is a mess – the Warwick Triangle development, which destroyed a 110-year-old farmers’ market to make way for a modern shopping mall, also incensed motorists by diverting traffic from the traditional transport hub of the city.

In Johannesburg, the much-vaunted Gautrain rail link is unlikely to be ready in time to rescue traffic-clogged arteries. In Cape Town, the main exit route from the city centre, the N2 highway, has become a four-hour bumper-to-bumper ordeal, in a city renowned as Africa’s siesta capital.

While construction is an ongoing reminder of the extravaganza to come, some South Africans are cynical about the potential tangible benefits of hosting the event. With Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium nearing completion, expansive reconstruction and development of the surrounding precinct has turned Durban’s Golden Mile beachfront into an embarrassment. Public amenities, including showers, taps and toilets, have been closed off to the general public, as local government seems distracted from present needs while fast-forwarding to a future harvest.

Ticket holders and ardent football fans are, however, increasingly upbeat about being part of the spectacle. School and university holidays have been rescheduled to make way for the six-week invasion, and no one is expecting it to be a dull affair.

In fact, many South Africans are adamant that once the dirt and muck are swapped for the buff and shine of finished projects, excitement will reach a crescendo, shedding the baggage of false promises and unrealistic expectations. After all, this is the World Cup – and its debut on the African ?continent. Emulating Beijing’s performance at the 2008 Olympics and Rio’s hopes for 2016, South Africa wants to showcase Africa and give the world a great show. With stadiums around 90% complete and on track to be finished in the new year, international scepticism surrounding South Africa’s capacity to host the 2010 World Cup has been mostly put to rest.

In early October, a delegation from football authority FIFA inspected the stadiums over a six-day, six-city tour and issued a comprehensive thumbs-up to the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for their work. While there is still a vast amount to be done on transportation and stadium precincts, it is now a case of adding the final touches before the event kicks off in June 2010.

So far, 678,443 tickets have been sold, with almost half purchased by South Africans, but anxiety around the event was raised by sporadic social unrest in 2009. With 267,000 jobs shed in the mining, manufacturing and retail sectors in the second quarter, ordinary South Africans have become impatient with the slow pace of service delivery, particularly in outlying municipalities.
Significant effort has gone into nurturing long-term investment and using the massive developments as catalysts for building the economy and creating sustainable employment. But professor Richard Tomlinson, co-author of Development and Dreams: Urban Legacy of the 2010 Football World Cup, said that the economic rationale for hosting the World Cup was deceptive. To expect the tournament to perform an economic miracle is not only inaccurate but misleading, he says.

Professor Ari Sitas from the sociology department at the University of Cape Town agrees that a successful World Cup would strike a blow against Afro-pessimism. But he says it is unlikely to produce a Beijing-type effect, where the Chinese city boomed dramatically with the hosting of the Olympic Games in 2008. “The Chinese example has to be understood: China has been spending, and will continue spending on infrastructure and world-class facilities for a long time to come. On the other hand, there is always the Atlanta and Athens effect – just look at the wasteland of facilities there.”

Congress of South African Trade Unions spokesman Patrick Craven says that while the World Cup presents an outstanding opportunity, workers are under no illusion that the event will buffer the effects of the global economic crisis. “There are possibilities that public transport and tourism could see permanent job increases, but we are concerned about the other sectors that have experienced incredible job losses during this recession.” The LOC’s Jordaan concedes that the 20,000 jobs created in the construction industry were always going to be temporary, but that “tens of thousands” of people had sustained jobs through difficult economic times and that they had “received invaluable skills which have seen them move on to other major construction projects”.

While local scepticism about South Africa’s ability to host the World Cup might be vanishing, the international media remain to be convinced. Lungani Zama, a sports journalist and postgraduate researcher at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, says, “most coverage has focused on crime, and this is still a concern because even though the [2009] Confederations Cup was relatively successful, the World Cup will be four times the size.”

Tomlinson says that the main beneficiary in such events may be the sponsor’s image. “This explains the need to clean up even the areas around the stadium,” he says. While South Africa has not experienced a major clean-up on the scale of Beijing, there have been efforts to create a polished image for an international audience. Pat Horn, the co-ordinator of Streetnet International, an NGO defending the rights of informal traders and the urban poor, says the economic development component in South Africa’s pitch to host the 2010 World Cup has long since disintegrated.
Sitas remains sceptical that the government’s promises will be felt by ordinary South Africans. “What is important to analyse is what accrues to FIFA and its supply chains and what accrues locally.” He says that while the World Cup could reach legendary status on the African continent, it is difficult to predict which South Africa will emerge.
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