The World Cup Event

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South Africa - the Joy, Opportunities and Problems of the Host

Winning the Bid for the 2010 FIFA Football World Cup

For the 2006 event South Africa had lost in front of Germany, which finally became the host.

Finally, South Africa has won the bid for the 2010 Soccer World Cup against co-hosters Libya-Tunisia, against Egypt and against Morocco. Interestingly all of these countries were from Africa...

FIFA's Executive Committee had taken the decision not to allow co-hosted tournaments, as a result of this, Tunisia withdrew from the bidding process.

Libya's bid no longer met all the requirements of FIFA, therefore the country was dropped.

South Africa, Morocco and Egypt remained in the race. 14 votes went to the winner, South Africa, 10 went to Morocco and none to Egypt.

Opportunities for the South African National Football Team

South Africa has never hosted a football World cup event so far, but has had 2 appearances during the history of the event. First time it entered in 1998, then in 2002. The country will have a 3rd chance in 2010, as it is already qualified for the games.

The South African National Team or the "Bafana Bafana", as it is nicknamed  had also played in the African Nations Cup (7 appearances, 1 time winner in 1996), Confederations Cup (2 appearances, best result: 4th place in 2009).

Overall if we examine the history of the "Bafana Bafana", then we will notice that it is an emerging team. More successes have occurred in the last decades (including the 2 world cup appearances and the African Cup win). It will remain to be seen how the hosts will cope with the powerful major teams like Germany and Brazil.

Undoubtedly hosting such an event gives the local team a psychological advantage. France has won the World Cup in 1998, Japan and South Korea obtained good results when they co-hosted the games in 2002, so did Germany in 2006...

Security Concerns

Crime rate is very high in South Africa, especially in Johannesburg. It is considered one of the most dangerous cities in the World because of the large number of muggings, assaults, theft and other felonies. The local authorities are taking measures to ensure the smooth running of the World Cup events.

Not only local suspects need to be kept under... With the arrival of so many fans will come potentially thousands of hooligans who might cause unrest in the neighbourhoods surrounding the stadiums and entertainment hotspots.

The World Cup's Effects on Tourism and the Economy

Heavy Investments and Uncertain Income

In order to successfully get out of the recession all market economies are struggling to reduce expenses and find new sources of income as everything is going down...

Major sports events like Olympics and World cups have the potential to boost the economies of the hosts, but if they're not profitable, then they these events do more harm than good to the economy.
 

South Africa's tourism and economy will be boosted, just as it happens during such major events. Thing is, that the incomes must be higher than the investments. In order to gain, South Africa will have to attract a substantial number of visitors, investors (such as companies who will advertise), will have to extract revenue from licenses (such as TV broadcasting licenses) and the list could go on.
 

Advertising will certainly have an important role during this World Cup event. Football can even be called an industry, due to the enormous effort and investments that revolve around it, especially in countries like the UK, Brazil and Portugal.

The total investments for this FIFA World Cup have reached 3,7 billion USD, but this is roughly half of what Japan and South Korea had spent for the 2002 edition.

Recommended Resources:

BBC - "SA 2010 Could Cost $ 3,7 billion"

The Sources of Income

 The revenue will be generated both directly (by tickets sold, commercials on TV, ads in the stadiums, etc.) and indirectly (more tourists will eat in restaurants, more airport taxes will be paid by the arriving visitors, etc).

We mustn't forget the black economy which lurks underneath and in South Africa it's more of a problem than in Europe or Japan and Korea. With certainty there will be an inflow that won't be measured by the state, won't be taxed and that's quite a problem for the state's budget.

South Africa will benefit from the sports event perhaps more than many other countries did in the past. This country's economy is significantly weaker than the French, German, Japanese and South Korean economies, therefore the boost will be more spectacular, if everything goes well...

The working force was relatively cheap, but the prices of tickets, licenses and advertising fees will be approximately as high as in the previous hosting countries, thus bringing more income from the FIFA World Cup event.

In South Africa, the investments into anything () implicated more effort than in the case of previous hosts due to the poorer infrastructure, the fact that this country hadn't had the massive modern stadiums of Japan or Germany, for instance, they had to be built from scratch.

Difficulty of Reaching Out to Clients and Attracting Investors

For travelers it is much harder to reach South Africa than the previous hosts because of the big distance and less airline connections. Germany had the advantage of being in the center of Europe, accessible by rail, road, air, even by sea and river. South Africa will count almost exclusively on air travel. And in this segment, the country doesn't stand strong when compared to France, South Korea, Japan or Germany.

Potential guests should arrive from all over: Europe, Asia, Australia, Latin America, North America and of course, Africa.

Europe is far away across the whole Africa, Asia, Australia and North America are even further, therefore many travelers won't be able to find cheap flights to South Africa. In most cases there won't be any direct flights, but with at least 1 or even 2 stopovers until they reach Johannesburg or Cape Town. Prices for getting there from faraway countries will be high.

Latin America is closer, but interestingly there are very few flights between Latin America and South Africa, so a large swarm of fans cannot be expected between these 2 regions either.

Otherwise Africans can be good clients to the tournament, but due to the low income levels in Sub-Saharan Africa especially, there won't be a large basis of foreign clients arriving to South Africa.

Other former hosts of previous Football World Cup events, such as Spain (1982), Mexico (1986), Italy (1990), USA (1994), France (1998), Japan-Korea (2002), Germany (2006) had no such special problems with incoming visitors... Both Europe, North America and Asia have had large numbers of potential clients who could afford the short trip to the neighboring host country.

In case of South Africa there no such large quantity of potential clients in the proximity.

The risk of low return of investments is tremendous. But the South African Government is trying to cope with this issue attracting visitors for 2 reasons: the World Cup and tourism. Perhaps this way it'll better pay off.

The Symbol of the South Africa 2010 FIFA World Cup

The official South Africa Football World Cup logo contains the country' national colours and the illustration of a football player kicking a ball skywards.

The design is suggestive, but has a strong feel of FIFA, which might seem to be the main label of this emblem, like FIFA were more important than the event or the place where it's held.

Zakumi, the Official Mascot of this World Cup

Zakumi is a yellow leopard with green hair.

He is the official mascot of the event. However, Zakumi is not the logo of the World Cup.

This fictional character is an anthropomorphised leopard with green hair and yellow skin - which symbolizes South African national colours.

The character is said to have been born on June 16th 1994 (a commemorated day in South Africa of a tragic event in 1976 when children were hamred in riots in the city of Soweto). The leopard is 15 years-old and his name is composed of "ZA" (South Africa's international abbreviation) and the word "kumi", meaning 10 in several South African languages.

South Africa's national team (nicknamed "Bafana Bafana") is also wearing the same colours as Zakumi.

Zakumis are already available in shops in various sizes and materials, from plush animals to keyrings...

Who Will Win this World Cup?

Speculations are endless and as it is expected, it will be one of the great teams. The "big fish" take the trophy all the time, but perhaps if they fall by eliminating each other and less notorious, yet very good teams like Ghana, Cameroon, Uruguay or Mexico fight their way up, then we might have a surprise winner!

We have taken into account factors like the current FIFA Ranking, the recent evolutions of the teams and the past reputation that they have had during the World Cup Games...

Then have come up with this list of possible winners split into 3 categories or levels according to which is more likely to win.

Categories 3 through 1 are the teams least likely to most likely to win the World Cup. The potentially weakest teams were not listed, but the strongest ones.

Category 3 are least likely to win, but still have potential, then Category 2 teams have more chances and, the most are in case of Category 1 teams...

Category 3:

Cameroon

Denmark

Ghana

Mexico

United States

Uruguay

Category 2:

Netherlands

Argentina

Category 1:

Brazil

England

France

Germany

Italy

Portugal

Spain