Several important and famous people are telling me that I should be getting excited about the 2010 Soccer World Cup.  I feel quite bad about this, because I have been unable to work up much enthusiasm, and I am not sure why.
  At first I thought it was because I am not a fan of soccer.  I never used to be a fan of rugby or cricket either.  But I was hooked when we hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup and hoisted the trophy.  I now much prefer the ‘hooligan’s game played by gentlemen’ to the ‘gentleman’s game played by hooligans’.  (Don’t blame me, this definition comes from Rudyard Kipling.)  And when we unseated Australia last year to become cricket’s No 1, it spurred me to learn cricket-speak.  I now talk knowledgeably about fine legs and twelve men. 
 
But how can anyone get excited about a game where our national team ranks 70th in the world, above other famous soccer-playing nations like Belarus and Iceland?  (Only the top 32 teams actually get to play, so even if there is a meteoric rise in form it is likely that our boys will be eliminated in the first round).  To make this disgrace even more egregious is the stupendous amount of money being thrown at soccer.  While other sports like hockey and badminton and netball get supported by overworked amateurs and sandwich-and-tea-flask-toting mums and dads, it seems a bit hard that millions (and I mean Mmmmillions) of rands gets spent on promoting the Beautiful Game.  No, soccer cannot be accused of being underfunded.  And what have we to show for all this investment?  A number of advertising slogans and a few very rich soccer administrators.   
 
But OK, let’s leave the actual soccer aside and let’s look at the ‘2010 legacy’.  We are told that 2010 will leave us with better infrastructure and services.  Now, I could get excited about this – whenever I travel to another city.  Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth et al are already looking sleek and space-age-ish.  These cities are redesigning their transport structures and city hubs.   Ambitious plans get updated by the minute with smiling city officials and the pop of champagne corks.
 
In Durban they’re building a stadium.  That’s it. Granted, it is a very pretty stadium, although at a price-tag of R3,2 billion it would darn well have to be a pretty stadium.  But there’s no money for anything else.  The Golden Mile is tarnished (the beachfront no longer sparkles, it lurks), most major city roads are lined with litter and waist-high weeds, vacant lots in the city centre are overgrown and dirty, vagrants live in the public parks, the sea is too polluted for swimming, any city history before 2002 is being systematically obliterated, monuments are crumbling, public transport is dangerous, the grubby harbour precinct - which could have been a world-class tourist attraction -  is deserted by day and unsafe by night.  Two years ago there were ambitious plans for an integrated transport system, trams, a sporting precinct, a beachfront upgrade, independent water quality maintenance, a metropolitan bus system, 10 new hotels.  Nothing seems to have come of this.  With a shrinking tax base (investment is fleeing the city, unlike other places where ambitious private-sector projects are being announced almost daily) it seems unlikely that anything will ever happen.   So perhaps I am only depressed because I live in squalid Durban. All right, so then let’s look at the bigger picture – the rest of South Africa will be putting on its best face for the marketing opportunity of a lifetime, with billions of viewers tuned in daily to watch the sporting action. Ah!  This is more like it.  Yes, but what are they going to see?  A country in the grip of winter – dry and brown or wet and grey.  Why, oh, why did FIFA insist on holding our best ever marketing opportunity during the time of year when South Africa does not actually look its best? It’s like holding the Miss World contest at 6am, three minutes after the contestants get out of bed.  There are many times of the year when South Africa is incomparable.  June and July are not those times.  Granted, broadcasters might be interspersing the soccer with marketing clips shot on more auspicious occasions, but SA Tourism could have made and broadcast those during any major global sporting event at any time, for a nano-fraction of the cost.  Mm, the cost.  No one could have foreseen the current economic crisis, or our political and social melt-down which is now on such public display.  But this soccer showcase is going to be a party with one heck of a hangover.  FIFA makes a lot of money and we pay the bill – for many years to come.  
  I would love to be proud of our World Cup, I ache to look forward to this with excitement and anticipation, my mouth should water at the thought of the upliftment and opportunity that the World Cup is going to bring.  But I’m not, I don’t and it doesn’t.  Why not? How do you feel about this issue? Let Niki know at nikimoore@webstorm.co.za