Am I the only one with conflicting feelings about the impending end to the World Cup?  The entire tournament for me was a festival of mixed feelings, and I have only just worked out why. 

The hype over the last six years was all about getting there.  No one really thought about what the final outcome would be – and I’m not talking about the soccer results.  So this is why the fiesta, for me anyway, has been both a shining success and a bitter failure at the same time. How could I celebrate FIFA’s generosity in awarding the WC hosting to South Africa when it crowed that the African tournament had netted it an income of $24 billion.  That profit was made possible by South African taxpayers.  Just imagine what a fraction of that money could achieve if it was spent on important things, instead of funding the lifestyles of overpaid administrators.  While I burn at the injustice of it, I just can’t think of any other way that things could have been done.  So I have protested in my own small way by boycotting all of the FIFA sponsors.  So there. Early on in the build-up, someone characterised the WC as follows:  “FIFA borrows your country in order to hold a party.  You give them the venue, the food and drink, the best facilities and service that you can afford, or perhaps can’t even afford.  They invite all their friends, whoop it up at your expense, and then leave you to do the washing up.  And what do they promise you?  One brief shining moment of global interest.” If we expected the World Cup to be our ‘Yes We Can’ moment, then we succeeded brilliantly.  We built the stadiums, we finished the roads, we put up the airports, we beautified the cities, we ran the Fan Parks, we got the glowing coverage.  If we expected the WC to bring economic benefit to ordinary people – apart from the roadside flag-sellers – then we failed miserably.  There might have been job opportunities but they were more than counterbalanced by the suspension of everyday life and work.  In that sense the show was like a Christmas party at an orphanage…. Everyone laughs and enjoys themselves and has fizzy cooldrink and cream cake, but once the streamers have been taken down and the wrapping paper thrown away, we are still orphans.  There is still social inequality, unemployment, crumbling services, crime and decay.  Our worst legacy would be if the world-wide approval of South Africa sends a message to our government that the way they are currently doing things is OK, and they can carry on as before. If we expected the soccer to bring millions of fans to South Africa to provide a huge boost to the tourism industry… well, did it?  Bafana’s loss in the first round was a blow to national pride, but great for the tourism industry.  More foreigners stayed here instead of going home.  The bad news, though, is that the tourism big spenders (according to VISA, the US and the UK) were also knocked out early on.  This left the notoriously frugal Europeans and South Americans to watch games and avoid the restaurants and hotels.  If we wanted national unity, we got it in spades.  For a blissful few weeks, everyone was everyone’s friend (despite some odd preconceptions that popped up occasionally).  Everyone flew the flag, cheered the teams, talked soccer, listened to the one-track discourse on radio, read the one-track coverage in newspapers.  All the news was good – or at least good to FIFA. But already people are beginning to talk about the hangover:  will the unity last?  Will the goodwill remain, and for how long?  What about the WC work which has now disappeared?  What about the bills, which are now going to become due? The biggest pluses were those that were completely unexpected.  Who would ever have thought that the vuvuzela would take the world by storm, both in a good and a bad way?  Who would have thought that the English press would veer from condescendingly negative reporting about South Africa to condescendingly positive reporting?  Who would have thought that the largest number of visitors would come from the US, where more people heard about South Africa that they ever have before or will again?  Who would have thought that rugby would be forced out of its traditional venues into townships and smaller cities? (Which was great for rugby, by the way.)  Who would have thought that people who had never attended a soccer match before would buy tickets and ear-plugs and cheer themselves hoarse?  If only we had known, we could have made much more of these wonderful things.  And that is the worst – if only we had known. So – we made the stadiums, the show, the news.  And we did well.  But in many ways, we also made history….  It is just the greatest pity that we weren’t ready for that.