World Cup Drama

Well, the 100 day countdown to the start of the FIFA 2010 World Cup passed a few weeks ago, which means there’s not much time left for South Africa to prepare! I’m very excited about the whole thing, and have successfully procured tickets to 2 group stage matches in Cape Town (England vs. Algeria and Portugal vs. North Korea). However, I must say, probably the only reason I’m still excited about the whole event is because a) I have an inexpensive place to stay (our landlord was nice enough to let us keep our apartment through June without a rent increase), b) I have my own means of transportation, and c) I do not have to find a plane ticket to South Africa. In my humble opinion – not that anyone is asking me – there are so many things South Africa has done wrong about the organization and planning of this whole event, it makes me really sad. (Or maybe I should be placing more blame on FIFA – after all, how could they stand by without stepping in?) What’s the problem, you ask? Well, this is supposed to be their big chance to show the world how great Africa can be, and instead, I predict a mess. Sure, the stadium construction is on track...but there’s so much more to it than that. For one thing, I’m not so sure about the readiness of intra-city transportation upgrades (rather necessary, assuming that tourists aren’t going to be comfortable taking rickety minibuses driven by crazy drivers, stuffed with 20 seatbelt-less passengers…not to mention that all public transportation, at least in Cape Town, is essentially off limits after dark for safety reasons).

Ok, now moving on – transportation is not the major problem I see. The obvious truth is, in order to significantly boost your tourism industry, you actually need people to come. Call me crazy, but I don’t really see that as a particularly novel or profound idea. Problem is, the airlines have jacked up the prices so much (and not significantly increased flight volume, as far as I can tell) that no one can afford to come. And, to top it off, lodges etc. in the city are trying to make so much money off the deal that they are charging prices totally beyond reason. So, instead of making this a wonderful opportunity for people to visit South Africa, they are doing an amazing job at making it exceedingly difficult for people to do so. Just a few weeks ago FIFA released a statement saying they were letting go of a bunch of room reservations in Kruger because no one was booking (duh, because no one can get here) and they also said they think they overestimated the number of foreigners who will come by 20%. That’s a lot of people they’re losing out on! Finally, a few weeks ago, they also said there would be an investigation into price fixing by the airlines. That’s nice and all...except that they’re about 6 months behind if they actually want to make a difference with that investigation. Some of the local airlines have begun to release more in-country flights (previously jacked up sometimes literally 3X the normal amount) because no one was booking. I asked a local travel agent (the same one who did a phenomenal job helping me plan the trip I took with my parents) about how to go about getting reasonably priced tickets from the U.S. to South Africa during the World Cup, and her response was something along the lines of “Our agency has decided we cannot associate ourselves with FIFA for fear of ruining our reputation. The whole thing is such a disappointing mess, and it’s not going to get any better.” You know it’s bad when a very reputable travel agent says she can’t associate with bringing people to the World Cup – that’s her job! The World Cup should be a dream for her, yet she can’t even participate.

It just makes me so sad for South Africa with all these people in the service industry thinking they’re going to get a huge economic boom when the World Cup comes around…well that only works if people can get here and if prices aren’t so exorbitant that people give up trying to procure your services (be it flights, lodging, food, etc.). Ugh I really hate to say it, but this is so typically African, in terms of planning and efficiency. Things just move incredibly slowly here and aren’t always very well thought out. (Case in point: remember the time I wrote about how we had to spend 4 hours in a car and 4 hours walking in order to get to a Killers concert because they chose to host the concert at a venue with a one-lane gravel driveway? Yeah, you just can’t do that when 10,000 people are expected to show up.)

Another disappointment for FIFA is they seem to be selling much less tickets to South Africans than they had hoped. I was talking to Nzwaki about this, and she said it’s just not in South African culture to plan ahead that far and commit to something 6 months or more in advance, especially for families who live day to day and week to week with little savings. In fact, a funny observation on South African time perspectives: if someone says “I’ll do that now” they could mean anytime (“now” is very open ended); “I’ll do that just now” means sometime in the near-ish future; and “I’ll do that now now” is the one that actually implies immediacy. What other culture has so many time qualifications for “now?” Haha, certainly not the U.S.!

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, South Africa also has bigger issues to deal with in terms of what all of the extreme World Cup expenditures mean to the millions of citizens who struggle to get by living in one-room shacks. Understandably so, people who are so poor, yet see little to no benefit from social benefits, are wondering how a government that keeps making promises about housing and employment improvements but can never quite deliver, somehow has the money to spend extreme amounts on building stadiums. The New York Times brought this issue to attention in a recent article: Cost of a Stadium Reveals Tensions in South Africa. Case in point in the article: a $137 million dollar stadium which will play host to only 4 games in Nelspruit. So I guess the ultimate question is, will the money spent on that stadium be worth it in terms of the boost the South African economy will get? Even if the economy does benefit sufficiently, will the people at the bottom ever see the effects? I hope the tourists who do manage to make it here for the World Cup don’t end up just seeing all the glitz and glamour and forgetting to take notice of what is reality for so many people in this country. South Africa has the largest wealth gap in the world, after all.

Yes, it will be interesting to see how this all plays out. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see! And, despite my negativity, don’t get me wrong – as a die-hard soccer fan, I’m still extremely excited to take part in this. Only 80 more days!