a violent demonstration in late October 2009 in the township bordering the Soccer City stadium, during which residents vowed that ‘there will be no 2010’ because they had no houses and no jobs. The government is ‘pouring money into 2010... why are they not pouring money into housing?’ (The Times, 22 October 2009).
To a significant extent the World Cup and its legacy threatens to become part of South Africa’s broader politics of class contestation, as there is an increasing demand that the event should have benefited not only major businesses and the affluent, but also the country’s poor. A hidden aspect of South Africa’s obvious construction boom, for example, is the extent to which the commercial opportunities linked to this expansion was absorbed by only a few dominant construction firms (for reviews of the politics of stadium construction, see for instance Alegi 2007).
These aspects present a number of challenges to the national government, which not only had to deliver a well prepared and safe tournament that satisfies international scrutiny, but also had to respond to an increasingly restive domestic constituency. Given the experience of previous sports events hosted by South Africa, the 2010 World Cup had the potential to foster racial reconciliation and nation building, even if that was short-lived. This was to depend, however, on how successful the event was judged to have been by the international community, and on whether people in South Africa believe that the tournament brought them real material benefits. Ultimately, it may well turn out that the World Cup created economic benefit for only a handful.
NOTES
1 In reality, the expansion of the Summer Games programme has been more extensive since each sport has a number of different disciplines and involves competitions for men and women.
2 Cited in ‘Sorge um Unterkünft in Südafrika,’ www.sportal.de/sportal/generated/.../14293300000.html
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