Safe 2010 World Cup, The Debate Goes On

South Africa and Safe 2010 World Cup: The debate goes on
By Tokunbo Ojo

A cross-section of soccer analysts and editorialists, especially those in the British media, are now calling on FIFA to strip South Africa of the World Cup hosting rights, following last’s March disaster at Abidjan’s Felix Houphouet-Boigny stadium.

The disaster, which happened during the South Africa 2010 World Cup qualifying match between Ivory Coast and Malawi, left 19 people dead and more than 100 injured. With the headlines in many Western media screaming – African stadium stampede kills 19, Another African stadium tragedy, this unfortunate accident has rejuvenated the Afro-pessimism and cloud of incompetence that have been over South Africa and its organizational capacity to host event of World Cup’s magnitude since 2004.

“It is not the people [of Europe], but part of the media, who, from the very beginning were not at ease in trusting South Africa, or Africa at all, to organize the World Cup,” explained Joseph Blatter, FIFA President, in the press conference held in Johannesburg, South Africa, 48 hours before the kick-off of last June FIFA Confederation Cup that is World Cup dress rehearsal.

“I do not understand this reluctance to go to Africa and we are here, not only to honour Africa but to give justice to Africa and African football for all they have done for football.”

“But ever since I opened the envelope with the name South Africa they said it would not work. Why? Every year 10 or 11 million tourists come to South Africa. They have organized international competitions and conferences. Why the hell is there always this question mark over football?”

With the Abidjan tragedy, the skeptics are hoping to hit a home run on getting the location of 2010 World cup changed. What is nauseating about this thought is the way that a continent of 54 countries is simply reduced to one big homogeneous space, despite diverse political and socio-cultural structure of these countries. Consequently, they all get vilified by incident that happened in any part of the continent because the continent is cognitively constructed as one gigantic ‘heart of darkness’ in the minds of many in Western world and their media.

If not, how on earth would any sane mind with a slight knowledge of global diversity conclude that the Abidjan’s tragedy is another proof of South Africa’s incompetence to host a safe World Cup? It just does not make sense. It is akin to saying that Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics should not be held again in Canada because of an ice rink tragedy in the US or collapse of a sporting dome in Mexico. Can you imagine how ludicrous such demand will be?

The Confederation Cup, World Cup test-run, was held in South Africa in June. Everything went hitch-free. The local organizing committee got pass marks from the FIFA and the countries that participated in the tournament. With the success of the Confederation Cup, one would have thought that this would have assuaged doubting Thomases of their fears. That is not the case. Afro-pessimism rages on.

UK Guardian writer, Louise Taylor, who is among many that have vowed that they would not attend 2010 World Cup due to security risk, discredited the success of Confederation Cup. Though she was not in South Africa for the event, she was still bold to declare the success as a mere propaganda.

“There is a huge political investment in Africa’s inaugural World Cup proving a resounding success,” she writes, “and you suspect those FIFA delegates who recently gave the country eight out of ten in terms of preparations could be in peril of believing their own spin.”

Her colleagues in other media such as UK Sunday Times are having a field day portraying South Africa as a xenophobic nation of starved people, refugees and cannibals. Issues such as South Africa’s high rate of crime, violence, poverty and HIV/AIDS are also making big headlines, at the expense of country’s rich soccer tradition and triumphant successes in hosting several international sporting events.

These headlines, which create a perception of insecurity, are ritually framed within the familiar Western dominant cognitive model of “usual African violence“, and “barbarism.” As Mark Gleeson, former BBC reporter and South African noted, it is “a perception of incompetence carried by a continent whose coup d’etats, famines and conflicts are often the only news to which the rest of the world is exposed.”

If South Africa was located in Europe or North America, there is possibility that issue of security and social vices on streets might not be hot news items. If at all, it was; it would be a buried news item or simply be given a passing reference. That’s the case with Germany 2006 World Cup.

Mere looking at the other side for less than two minutes to check train schedule, my laptop accessories disappeared at the Hamburg train station during the last World Cup in Germany. This happened right under a surveillance camera.

At the media centres in Berlin, Hamburg, Hanover and Munich during World Cup matches, several laptops, mobile phones and electronic devices developed wings and flew away at the blight of an eye. Complaints and reports were filled with the ever-effective German police. Almost four years after, I am still waiting for my laptop accessories to be found.

These incidents did not overshadow the ‘real news’ of the World Cup and good events staged by Germans.

If it was in a developing country that scores of reporters mysteriously lost their laptops, cameras and cell phones in the media centres or in train station as it was in my case, the incident would have made the biggest headline of wrong kind across the world.

One thing that is clear from this foregoing is that “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,” as George Orwell aptly wrote.