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The Political Economy of Mega-Stadiums and the Underdevelopment ofGrassroots Football in South AfricaPeter AlegiPublished online: 16 Apr 2008.

To cite this article: Peter Alegi (2007) The Political Economy of Mega-Stadiums and theUnderdevelopment of Grassroots Football in South Africa, Politikon: South African Journal ofPolitical Studies, 34:3, 315-331

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The Political Economy of Mega-Stadiums and the Underdevelopmentof Grassroots Football in South AfricaPETER ALEGI�

ABSTRACT As South Africa prepares to host the 2010 World Cup finals, public andscholarly discourses have largely overlooked the consequences of interactionsbetween global sport, professional leagues, and grassroots football. Yetanalysing this dynamic is important because it challenges bold claims made bythe Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and SouthAfrican boosters about the 2010 World Cup’s capacity to deliver economic,political, and social benefits to the nation-state. Drawing on South Africangovernment and media sources, FIFA documents, as well as interviews andsecondary literature, this article examines the policy decisions that inspired theconstruction of a lavish new stadium on Green Point Common in Cape Townand then considers the potential effects of this strategy on sports in poorcommunities. Preparations for 2010 reveal how South Africa’s engagement withglobal capitalism is not mitigating apartheid’s cruel legacies of racism,widespread material poverty, and extreme inequality. Instead, as Ebrahimargues, preliminary evidence suggests that current World Cup strategies areactually undermining the grassroots game.

Introduction

‘Professional sport’, Yusuf Ebrahim, former president of the anti-apartheid SouthAfrican Council on Sports, noted recently, ‘is a multi-billion rand internationalindustry and is a growing threat to the development of sport in underprivilegedand economically poor communities’ (Ebrahim, 2006, p. 175). As South Africaprepares to host the 2010 World Cup, public and scholarly discourses havelargely overlooked the consequences of interactions between global sport, pro-fessional leagues, and grassroots football.1 Yet analysing this dynamic is import-ant because it challenges bold claims made by the Federation Internationale deFootball Association (FIFA, the game’s world governing body) and SouthAfrican authorities about the 2010 World Cup’s capacity to deliver economic, pol-itical, and social benefits to the nation-state. Drawing on South African govern-ment and media sources, FIFA documents, as well as interviews and secondary

Politikon, (December 2007), 34(3), 315–331

ISSN 0258-9346 print; 1470-1014 online/07/030315–17 # 2007 South African Association of Political Studies

DOI: 10.1080/02589340801962635

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literature, this article examines the policy decisions that inspired the constructionof a lavish new stadium on Green Point Common in Cape Town and then considersthe potential effects of this strategy on sports in poor communities.

While the history of football in Cape Town can be traced back to the 1860s (seeNauright, 1997; Alegi, 2004), the city is marginal in South African footballculture. Cape Town’s regional specificity is partly responsible for the statusquo. From a demographic standpoint, nearly half of the population is comprisedof Coloureds2 (9 per cent of South Africa’s total population), with Africansmaking up about one-third and whites about one-fifth. Cape Town’s deep colonialhistory (including slavery), its status as a port long integrated into an internationaleconomy, and the brutal impact of apartheid social engineering on its people andneighbourhoods distinguish the city’s past. In sporting terms, the cultural, econ-omic, and administrative centre of domestic football is located in Gauteng pro-vince (approximately 1200 km north of Cape Town): the home base of KaizerChiefs and Orlando Pirates, the most popular and successful clubs in thecountry, as well as other important sides like Mamelodi Sundowns, Supersport,Jomo Cosmos, and Moroka Swallows. Gauteng also boasts the headquarters ofthe 2010 Local Organising Committee, the South African Football Association,and the Premier Soccer League. Situating Cape Town within this broadercontext, this study seeks to demonstrate some important ways in which dominantforces in the changing political economy of world sport, including the power andambitions of FIFA, have influenced and continue to shape hegemonic interests andagendas within South Africa in the planning processes for 2010. A second andrelated argument in the article is that the preparations for the mega-event in theWestern Cape Province illustrate how global and national institutional interestsserve to undermine, rather than strengthen, much needed development of grass-roots sports in historically disadvantaged communities. Particularly when thehost is operating within an international football framework dominated by mono-polistic institutions (e.g. FIFA), global media, and transnational corporationsaccountable mainly to themselves (Sugden and Tomlinson, 1998; Maguire,1999; LaFeber, 2002; Nauright, 2004; Lanfranchi et al., 2004).

Cape Town in South African football culture: a brief overview

In the Western Cape, rugby and cricket rather than football capture the lion’s shareof media attention. The Afrikaans-language daily newspaper Die Burger hardlycovers football at all, while the two main English-language dailies, The CapeTimes and The Cape Argus, devote considerable human and material resources,as well as premium placement, to reports about domestic and internationalrugby and cricket, and the English Premier League. Historically, The CapeTimes and The Cape Argus, as Grant Farred has noted, have played an importantrole in fostering working-class Coloured communities’ affinity for English foot-ball (Farred, 2000, pp. 103–126). This process of adaptation was evident, forinstance, in the use of names of English clubs and stars by local amateur teams(e.g. Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Everton) and footballers, and in the selective

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appropriation of particular modes of play. More recently, transnational corporateownership of The Cape Times and The Cape Argus by Independent News &Media, a media conglomerate operating in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand,South Africa and the United Kingdom, has undermined the quality and quantityof local news reporting, thus consolidating football’s second-class status of inthe Cape.3 While this long-standing media bias against local football has been det-rimental it has not kept Capetonians, male and female, from actively participatingin the game. Today it is claimed that ‘there are more soccer players registered inclubs in [Greater] Cape Town . . . than anywhere else in the country’ (ProvincialGovernment of the Western Cape and the City of Cape Town 2010 Strategic Plan,2007 [hereafter CTSP], p. 40).4

At the apex of the city’s football pyramid are two elite professional clubsthat compete in the lucrative domestic Premier Soccer League (PSL): Santosand Ajax Cape Town.5 Santos, named after Pele’s Brazilian club, wasfounded in 1982 and is known as ‘The People’s Team’. It is one of the veryfew clubs from the anti-apartheid Federation Professional League to have sur-vived unity and the de-racialisation of South African football. After a difficultperiod in the 1990s, which included two seasons of First (lower) Division pur-gatory and frequent lack of corporate sponsorships, Santos resurrected its for-tunes; it won the league title in 2001–2002 and the 2003 ABSA Cup, 2002BP Top 8, and 2001 Bob Save Super Bowl. Formed in 1999 as a result of amerger between Seven Stars and Cape Town Spurs (another ex-Federationside), Ajax Cape Town is jointly owned and operated by Ajax Amsterdamand a South African group led by businessman John Comitis. Ajax CapeTown is a local example of the Afro-European sporting partnerships unfoldingacross the continent that foster the migration of young African players to Euro-pean leagues. An increasingly important feature of the international politicaleconomy of football, this process can be interpreted as ‘a form of neo-colonialexploitation in that it involves the sourcing, refinement, and export of rawmaterials, in this case African football talent, for consumption and wealth gen-eration in the European core and that this process results in the impoverishmentof the African periphery’ (Darby et al., 2007, p. 144; also see Cornelissen andSolberg in this issue). Ajax Cape Town has been occasionally successful indomestic competitions, placed second in the 2003–2004 PSL season, andwinning the 2007 ABSA Cup and 2000 Rothmans Cup.

The core of Cape Town’s football constituency is rooted in the proletarianmilieu of the Cape Flats, a world apart from the inner suburbs where mostwhites, and middle- and upper-class people live. ‘The racialized boundaries andspace imposed by the Group Areas Act (No. 41 of 1950)’, oral historians SeanField and Felicity Swanson remind us, ‘had a significant impact on people’sexperiences and responses’. As a result of these legacies, contemporary CapeTown remains ambiguously a culturally diverse and divided city (Field andSwanson, 2007, p. 5). This social reality continues to shape Cape Town footballtoday, from the professional ranks down to the grassroots level. Despite popularaffection and local identification, Santos and Ajax typically play their home

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matches in front of small crowds of 1000 or less. Until recently, the two clubs usedtwo main venues: Athlone Stadium, situated in a mostly Coloured working-classarea in the Cape Flats; and, until its demolition in 2007, the old Green PointStadium, located on the Green Point Common about two kilometres west of thecity centre, near the ‘sanitized Disneyesque world of entertainment, leisure, andrecreation’ (Murray, 2007, p. 234) of the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, also thecountry’s main tourist attraction. However, when Santos and Ajax hostGauteng-based Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates—clubs with massive followingsin the African townships—Newlands Rugby Stadium is used because it cancomfortably accommodate large crowds of 30–40,000 spectators.

The spatial segregation bequeathed by apartheid and its effects on footballculture in the Western Cape Province informed Ajax Cape Town’s decision tobuild a new privately financed 9000-seat stadium in Philippi, a poor and mostlyAfrican settlement of small brick houses and shacks sandwiched between Mitch-ell’s Plain and Nyanga townships in the Cape Flats. ‘Football is an integral part ofsociety in the townships, it’s a way of life, and one has to tap into that’, AjaxAmsterdam owner Marten Fontein told reporters; ‘you have to bring togetherfootball and the people who love the game’ (Cape Times, 22 March 2006). Ofcourse, self-interest also played a role in the decision to invest in a poor areasince black townships are a rich source of football talent for Ajax Cape Townand its parent club in Amsterdam. Eusebio, the world-famous Mozambicanstriker for Benfica and Portugal in the 1960s, is among those insiders whobelieve this approach has benefits. ‘When Ajax or Manchester United haveteams there [in Africa]’, Eusebio said, ‘it is good because they have good livingconditions, nutritional food, swimming pools—everything. I think it makesthings better. Football can evolve’ (Armstrong, 2004, p. 264).

The globalised model of football training and development propelled by theAjax model resembles that of baseball academies in the Dominican Republicrun by North American Major League Baseball teams described by anthropol-ogist Alan Klein. This dynamic leads to a paradox, for South Africans’ depen-dence on the Dutch metropole is ‘both their best hope for the future and aleading cause of their underdevelopment’ (Klein, 1991, p. 60). Set within thiscomplex social topography, this article turns to an examination of how andwhy South African policy-makers at the local, provincial, and national leveldecided to build a new R2.9 billion (approximately US$296 m) World Cupstadium at Green Point—a decision with potentially serious implications forgrassroots football in Cape Town.

‘Build it and they will come’: from Newlands to Green Point Stadium

South Africa’s 2010 World Cup bid had proposed Newlands as Cape Town’svenue for three first-round matches and one quarterfinal. In 2004 FIFA inspectorsreported that it was one of three South African stadiums ‘which would easily besuitable’ for the tournament (FIFA Inspection Group Report, 2004, p. 68).Originally opened in 1890, the ground was renovated many times over the years

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and transformed into an ultra-modern 50,000-seat arena. Enveloped by theoverwhelmingly white Newlands suburb, the facility is home to Western Provincerugby. However, following the victory of the African National Congress (ANC) inthe 2004 provincial elections, the City Council and the Western Cape provincialgovernment in September 2005 tabled a proposal to change the World Cupvenue from Newlands to Athlone Stadium in the overwhelmingly black CapeFlats (CTSP). This decision sought to address an important aspect of the apartheidlegacy in sports: the woefully inadequate provision of sporting facilities in blackcommunities and football’s resulting dependency on rugby grounds for marqueematches. Despite its confirmed suitability for World Cup play, the WesternCape ANC leadership decided to ‘propose Athlone as the Cape Town venue,rather than Newlands as it was perceived that hosting the games at Athlonewould bring more developmental benefits to the city’ (CTSP, 2007, p. 7).

The move away from Newlands and into Athlone seemed like a practical way toleverage some broader social development from the 2010 World Cup. MayorNomaindia Mfeketo and Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool, both ANC stal-warts, probably focused on the Cape Flats stadium because they shared ambitiousgoals for this metropolis of three million people, many of them poor, unemployed,and living in crime-ridden council housing projects and shack settlements:improve service delivery, ‘eradicate poverty, boost local economic development,eradicate unemployment and promote the process of reconstruction and develop-ment’ (City of Cape Town, 2004/2005, p. 5). An additional incentive came fromthe Cape Town authorities’ recent expenditure of R60 million to upgrade Athlonestadium, which completely transformed the venue and brought its seating capacityto 30,000 spectators. A flexible master design allowed for later expansion to48,000 seats, which would permit marquee matches to be staged there in thefuture.

FIFA, however, rejected Athlone. On 18 October 2005, a FIFA inspection teamcomposed of Jim Brown, director of competitions, Jerome Valcke, director of mar-keting and television (now General Secretary), and Alain Leiblang, head of mediaoperations, arrived in Cape Town on a five-day exploratory visit to South Africa,Swaziland, and Mozambique (Pretoria News, 22 October 2005). None of themeetings between the FIFA delegation and Cape Town officials were open tothe public. But Teral Cullen, the City of Cape Town’s 2010 Project Director,laid out the city’s argument in favour of Athlone to the FIFA dignitaries:‘Having the World Cup at Athlone’, she pointed out, ‘would be a catalyst forother development, which is why the City of Cape Town wants it there’.6 In pur-suing this approach, local officials believed they were dutifully carrying out thenational government’s developmental agenda, which calls for social and economicupliftment of historically disadvantaged communities.7 Moreover, local policy-makers appeared to have been acting in accordance with FIFA’s wish that the2010 tournament leaves a legacy of social development and national unity(FIFA Inspection Group Report, 2004). Finally, Cape Town’s preference forAthlone stadium seemed to champion the South African Local Organising Com-mittee’s (LOC) argument that wisely targeted infrastructural development would

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justify gargantuan public expenditures to stage a global sporting spectacle (cf.Cornelissen and Swart, 2006, p. 119).

FIFA’s refusal to accept Athlone Stadium as a World Cup venue underscores thefact that the tournament is a profit making venture that generates 90 per cent of theorganisation’s revenue (FIFA Financial Report, 2002–2006). ‘During their inspec-tion in October 2005’, a government official reportedly told the Mail and Guardiannewspaper, ‘FIFA delegates objected that the low-cost council housing around theAthlone stadium would not form a suitable backdrop. ‘A billion television viewersdon’t want to see shacks and poverty on this scale’, a FIFA delegate is alleged tohave said (Mail & Guardian Online, 12 January 2007). Laurine Platzky, DeputyDirector-General in the Western Cape Premier’s Office, vehemently denied theveracity of this account (personal email communication, 25 April 2007). ButPlatzky did not dispute the newspaper’s assertion that FIFA had rejectedAthlone. The joint city/province strategic plan of January 2007, which Platzkyco-wrote, states that: ‘they [FIFA] were surprised that Green Point had onlybeen proposed as a training venue and not as the site for a semi-final, as it wasthe prime location to profile South Africa and the African continent through theworld’s biggest football event’ (CTSP, 2007, p. 7). A senior sport official speakingto me off the record confirmed that the FIFA delegation group suggested to theirSouth African hosts that a renovated stadium at Green Point—nestled betweenthe majestic backdrop of Signal Hill, Lion’s Head, and Table Mountain on oneside, and Robben Island and Table Bay on the other—would provide a magnificentand memorable televisual image of the city to billions of viewers worldwide.Indeed this proposal elevated FIFA’s interests above all others.

Mega-stadium construction in Cape Town provides fresh evidence of what soci-ologist Richard Giulianotti called a ‘legitimation crisis’ within FIFA, ‘as itstruggles to square its traditionalist, cultural discourses (universalism, sportsman-ship), with its transparently neoliberal market practices (such as selling World Cuptelevision rights to subscription television outside of Africa, [South Africaexcepted])’ (Giulianotti, 2005, p. 31). Largely through the sale of World Cupbroadcasting rights and corporate sponsorships (fifa.com, 6 February 2007 and22 May 2002), FIFA gained 816 million Swiss francs in profits from 2002 to2006. However, funding for FIFA’s football development initiatives, such as train-ing of players, coaches, and referees, as well as infrastructural improvements,accounted for less than 25 per cent of its annual expenditures.8 Not only dothese financial figures raise questions about FIFA’s non-profit status underSwiss law, but also explain how FIFA’s demand for a new structure at GreenPoint was most likely aimed at enhancing the value of its World Cup product.The governing body’s commercial imperative snubbed a strong local preferencefor Athlone as a venue and unloaded the high costs of construction and sustainabil-ity on the hosts.

Interestingly, the South African government and local organising committeeimmediately endorsed FIFA’s proposal for Green Point. That same day (18October 2005), Essop Pahad, a cabinet member and the government’s spokesper-son on 2010, conveyed FIFA’s preference to Premier Rasool (CTSP, 2007, p. 8).

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The LOC, headed by former ANC activist and Parliamentarian, Danny Jordaan,and Premier Soccer League and Orlando Pirates chairman, Irvin Khoza, con-curred. According to the local government, ‘The LOC indicated to the Provincialand City leadership that they would want the honour and benefit from the consider-able advantages of hosting a semi-final’, which would not be possible at thesmaller Newlands stadium. A World Cup semi-final, it was argued, ‘wouldattract well over a billion TV spectators as well as thousands of internationalfans and their families, not to mention all the lead-up events, product launches,possible FIFA congress and other high profile events, they should considerexpanding the Green Point Stadium’ (CTSP, 2007, p. 8).

This combined pressure from external (FIFA) and internal (LOC) sourcesreflected the ascendancy of a pro-growth ideology that is transnational. It portraysmega-events not only as worthwhile investments of public funds, but as necessaryvehicles to generate economic growth in a fiercely competitive planetary market(cf. Hiller, 2000). Powered by public and private interests, this growth regimevision has become dominant. Meanwhile, the city council’s most realistic projec-tions for the stadium estimated an operating loss of nearly R6 million by 2012: thisafter taking into account the possibility of using the stadium for rugby matches,concerts, exhibitions, rallies and other large events (Provincial Government ofthe Western Cape & City of Cape Town 2010 Business Plan, 2006 [hereafterCTBP], p. 25). Commissioned by the authorities to review these worrisomefigures, Price Waterhouse Coopers, the global auditing firm, concluded thatindeed revenues would be ‘considerably lower’ than reported in earlier discussionsin and out of council meetings (Cape Argus, 24 May 2007). Unable to supply datato justify huge expenditures for stadium building in a city already established onthe global cultural map, leaders of both the ANC and the opposition party, theDemocratic Alliance, instead focused on the project’s role as a catalyst for attract-ing external funds. Organisers also emphasised the importance of intangible (andunquantifiable) benefits: ‘These include possible FIFA funding, benefits from theupgrade and use of the common, showcasing the City, civic pride and integration.The overall conclusion is that the decision to rebuild the Green Point stadiumneeds to be a strategic and political decision rather than one that is based on thestrict cost benefit analysis’ (CTBP, p. 28 [emphasis added]). As other studieshave shown (see Trumpbour, 2007), the case for stadium subsidies often includesthreats of some kind and Cape Town was no different. ‘The cost to Cape Town, thecountry and the continent’, organisers warned, ‘of not building the stadium inGreen Point and taking advantage of this prime position at this time is immeasur-able’ (CTBP, p. 28).

In February 2006 the joint city/province 2010 committee shifted its official pos-ition and announced a new plan to build a state-of-the-art 68,000-seat stadium onGreen Point in order to host a World Cup semi-final.9 Soon thereafter, FIFA andCape Town organisers signed a legally binding ‘Host City Agreement’ that fina-lised the deal. Most of the funding came from the National Treasury, with contri-butions from local government and Investec Bank in the form of a R180 millionloan guarantee to cover an outstanding amount. Then on 8 March 2007 the

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municipality officially approved the R2.89bn budget for a new stadium at GreenPoint (Cape Times, 9 March 2007). Mayor Zille of the Democratic Alliance (inpower since the 2006 municipal elections) admitted that, ‘Under normal circum-stances we would not be able to justify putting money into one of the wealthiestprecincts. But we are doing it to make 2010 a success and we trust that [GreenPoint] residents will see it in that light.’ Zille seemed to acknowledge the powerfulinfluence of the growth imperative: ‘No stadium would mean no semi final andmuch less investment from the national and provincial governments in thecity’s infrastructure’ (Cape Times, 9 March 2007). Soon thereafter, the Murray& Roberts/WBHO consortium officially won the government contract to buildGreen Point stadium (Business Day, 14 March 2007).

As the country’s largest construction firm, Murray & Roberts is profiting hand-somely from 2010-related infrastructural development (Creamer EngineeringNews, 16 February and 1 March 2007). For instance, Murray & Roberts has a45 per cent stake in the Bombela joint venture that is responsible for all civilworks along the R23 billion Gautrain’s 80 km route connecting Johannesburg,Oliver Tambo International Airport, and Pretoria. The minority partner in theCape Town stadium joint venture is Wilson Bayly Holmes Ovcon (WBHO, estab-lished in 1970; wbho.co.za). In Cape Town, WBHO recently built the Inter-national Convention Centre, as well as the new headquarters of Investec—thecompany that provided the R180 million loan guarantee for the Green Pointstadium. WBHO is also the leading partner in a joint venture with a subsidiaryof Murray & Roberts which won the R716.8 million government contract tobuild Polokwane’s 2010 venue, the 45,000-seater Peter Mokaba Stadium(Creamer Media Engineering News, 20 March 2007). Both Murray & Robertsand WBHO are capitalising on their vast experience and capacity. These firmsare also cashing in on their Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) initiatives,which featured the appointment of non-executive black partners to their respectivecorporate boards and the creation of funds for black stock ownership in 2005.These schemes lubricated relationships with the government and helped the twocompanies secure numerous state tenders.10

In sum, the decision to build a monumental World Cup stadium in Cape Townwas profoundly political. FIFA’s material self-interest trumped local agendas. Thevigorous and voluntary support of the LOC, government authorities, and the SouthAfrican Football Association played a critical role as well. The decision to con-struct the new stadium at Green Point presages the continued marginalisation offootball beyond the elite level.

Youth development and the grassroots

Rather than spending billions of Rand on the new Green Point stadium, JohnComitis, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ajax Cape Town, argued in favourof renovating Newlands and building new football grounds throughout the metro-politan area. At a cost of roughly R250 million, ‘Comitis envisage[d] the creationof [FIFA-approved] synthetic pitches and a 1,500-seater stand at every one of the

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Cape’s amateur football districts. [. . .] These buildings would house adminis-tration areas, helping amateur unions . . . fixture games at a decent facility andre-create a lot of the football excitement and community involvement that havebeen lost down the years’ (Cape Argus, 6 October 2006).

Compared to building massive stadiums, Ajax’s plan to build a cheaper foot-ball-specific ground in Philippi seems wiser and more likely to have a positivelong-term impact. ‘What soccer needs are some manageable, intimate 15,000-seater stadiums’, football commentator Luke Alfred observed, and not ‘Spankingnew homes for clubs such as Golden Arrows, Moroka Swallows and Silver Stars.What we need is not what FIFA wants. And therein lies the rub’ (Sunday Times, 1October 2006). Trevor Phillips, the former CEO of the PSL, concurred: ‘it wouldhave been more sensible to have built smaller stadiums nearer the football-lovingheartlands and used the surplus funds to have constructed training facilities in thetownships’ (The Observer Monthly, 3 June 2007).

But close scrutiny of Cape Town’s 57-page ‘2010 Strategic Plan’ revealed thegovernment’s limited specialised knowledge of local football needs. A two-pagesection devoted to the tournament’s ‘sports legacy’ featured general statementsthat ‘sport development in schools and clubs must experience measurableimprovement as a result of hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup’ and noted thatthe city’s function was to build and maintain accessible facilities (CTSP, 2007,pp. 39–40). The plan’s more specific objectives include: helping SAFA andPSL clubs secure private sector sponsorships to put them on a firmer financialfooting; annually hosting international matches and at least one major footballevent such as a Cup final or a pre-season tournament involving crowd-pullersKaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates (e.g. Vodacom Challenge); Western Capeteams winning half of national youth tournaments (from Under 12 to Under 19level); getting more Western Cape players to represent South Africa in inter-national competitions; and, finally, marketing the Western Cape as a ‘Home forFootball’ (which borrows from the provincial slogan ‘Home for All’) in orderto challenge the secondary status of the game in this region.

This blueprint illustrates, among other things, how development is conceivedlargely in terms of returns from investments in elite football (e.g. professionalclubs, national teams). This strategy indicates the need for a much more balancedand sustainable sport policy built on the principle that ‘For children, in particular,play, sports and physical activity are crucial to healthy growth and development—physical, social and mental’ (SDPIWG, 2007, p. 16). Invoking the United Nations’1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 31), Makhenkesi Stofile, Min-ister of Sports and Recreation, has asserted how in post-apartheid South Africa,‘equity does not only refer to jobs, it also refers to sport as a fundamentalhuman right’ (Thomas, 2006, p. 10). As of yet, however, 2010 preparationslack a coordinated plan to significantly increase access to playing opportunities,training, and facilities for sport practised by black primary and secondaryschool students and amateur athletes in the poor and violent townships.

South Africa’s investment of scarce public funds for the construction of world-class stadiums has advantages as well as disadvantages. On the positive side, new

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sporting facilities may function as a means to forge urban and national identitiesand foster civic pride. As products and symbols of technological prowess andadvanced modernity, stadiums can boost the political and economic agenda drivingthe mega-event hosting strategy. Publicly financed stadiums, high-performancetraining centres, and similar projects typically built for mega-events are ‘of con-tinuing benefit only to a limited number of elite athletes. This is a very desirableobjective from the viewpoint of such athletes and their respective sport organis-ations’ (Whitson and Macintosh, 1993, p. 230). On the negative side, accordingto sport scholars David Whitson and Donald Macintosh, elite sport development‘should not be portrayed, as it often is, as something likely to benefit theaverage citizen’. Most importantly, ‘independent work on the economic impactof stadiums and arenas has uniformly found that there is statistically no significantpositive correlation between sports facility construction and economic develop-ment’ (Siegfried and Zimbalist, 2000, p. 103). In France and South Korea, forinstance, stadiums built for the 1998 and 2002 World Cups have not been econ-omically viable and require government subsidies to reduce financial losses. Inthe United States in the 1990s, public subsidies funded the construction or plan-ning of 95 new stadiums and arenas at a cost of nearly US$22 billion (Siegfriedand Zimbalist, 2000, p. 95). This process allowed professional sport teams andtheir wealthy owners to privatise profits while taxpayers, local and not, havebeen left to shoulder the enormous costs (cf. Coates and Humphreys, 1999;Quirk and Fort, 1999; Trumpbour, 2007). Given these international trends, thebillions of Rands spent for new sporting cathedrals for use in 2010 could actuallyweaken recreational sport in marginalised communities and may possibly result inthe withdrawal of financial resources that were previously allocated for a plethoraof pressing socio-economic needs.

Ironically, this scenario is unfolding at a time when more money than everbefore is flowing into football. For instance, in 2007 the PSL sold its televisionrights to private cable and satellite provider Multichoice Supersport for morethan R1 billion (over five years). This sum more than triples the PSL’s televisionrevenues, which in 2005–2006 amounted to R67.5 million paid by the publicSouth African Broadcasting Company (Business Day, 19 June 2007; PSLAnnual Report, 2006, p. 32). Another R500 million are due in the PSL’s coffersthanks to a new title sponsor (ABSA Bank) through 2012 (www.safa.net, 26September 2007). The PSL executive, led by Irvin Khoza, awarded itself a contro-versial R50 million ‘commission’ for securing the deal. ‘Millions and millions ofRands pumped into the South African Football Association (SAFA) and thePremier Soccer League with more and more going to the fat cats of the beautifulgame’, howled soccer analyst Farouk Abrahams, an ex-Cape Town Spurs goal-keeper and Santos coach; ‘and still only the odd murmur from the powers thatbe about improved development structures all the way down to the grassrootslevel’ (Cape Times, 28 September 2007).

Lungile Madywabe, a respected football reporter, told me matter-of-factly in arecent interview that ‘there is no such thing as development in South Africansoccer today’ (phone interview, 20 September 2007). Madywabe singled out

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SAFA’s financial mismanagement and lack of strategic planning as primarycauses for the association’s failed development programmes. Recent structuralchanges have led to a reorganisation of SAFA. The number of administrativeregions was increased from 25 to 52 so that SAFA officials could coordinatewith newly created municipal authorities. This process has expanded the size ofthe football bureaucracy and added more service delivery responsibilities toalready overburdened municipal governments. Founded in December 1991,SAFA’s history in football development is discouraging. The football body hasreceived generous sponsorships from large private corporations and parastatals(e.g. Transnet), but has produced only a handful of professional players andcoaches (Kunene, 2006) and has no national training centre. SAFA has donelittle to build or develop playing grounds in townships and rural areas and it hasvirtually ignored school football. Recognising the gravity of the situation, MinisterStofile stated the government’s intention to reverse ‘[t]he demise of school sport[because it] has had a crippling effect on the continued existence of sport in dis-advantaged communities’ (Ebrahim, 2006, p. 177; cf. Booth, 1998, pp. 167–198).

While it is too early to determine whether this rhetorical support for schoolsports at the highest levels of government has effected tangible changes on theground, there are some signs of improvement. For instance, in the winter of2007 a new high school football league emerged in Mitchell’s Plain townshipon the Cape Flats. A R2 million corporate sponsorship funded the programme.Before an audience of city councillors, SAFA dignitaries, business people, tea-chers, and community members at the league awards ceremony in Mitchell’sPlain, Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille remarked how

with all the excitement around 2010, it is sad that more cannot be done . . . the City of CapeTown is increasing its spending on soccer facilities . . . but it is not going to ensure that ouryoung talented soccer players get onto those fields and gain instruction and experience theyneed. The costs of administration, of logistics and of events are considerable, and need areliable source of funding. (web.capetown.gov.za, 31 August 2007)

Whether the football establishment will provide administrative support, and oper-ational and capital funds to sustain this and other school programmes in the futureremains to be seen.

SAFA’s deep reluctance to provide financial and other assistance for women’sfootball does not bode well for developing the game beyond the men’s elite level.It must be recognised that lack of support from SAFA, media, and corporate spon-sors has stunted but not prevented the growth of the women’s game in the lastdecade. Presently, there are more than 50,000 players nationwide (Saavedra,2003, p. 246), as well as a new national league and a solid national team amongthe best in Africa (Banyana Banyana). FIFA’s unequivocal support forwomen’s football globally has had limited success in advancing gender equityin South Africa. According to sociologist Cynthia Fabrizio Pelak, ‘despite thegrowing acceptance of women’s football, enormous disparities between thewomen’s and men’s programs still exist’ (Pelak, 2005, p. 64). Pelak cites a

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SAFA official to outline the enduring difficulty of effecting deeper transformationand making an ideological commitment to gender equity a reality:

On the executive level there is recognition that women’s football has to be treated a whole lotmore seriously than had been in the past. But, how to translate that into real action is anothermatter. Whilst there is a commitment, the commitment on a philosophical level that it needsto change, how to do that practically . . . becomes another matter. Because, you know, we arenot quite sure if everyone is as committed to that as they say they are on paper.

Whether dealing with schools, amateur clubs, or women’s football, it seems clearthat ‘the overall development for South African soccer is poorly coordinated, andlacks the organisation and drive suitable for a country not only hosting but aspiringto win the 2010 World Cup’ (Kunene, 2006, p. 381). Rodney Reiners, senior foot-ball writer at the Cape Argus and an ex-Santos player, commented that football’sstructural flaws needed to be placed in a broader social and economic context: ‘ifall the millions continue to be directed at the PSL, what about the First Division,the Second Division and so on? What’s the use of having cream at the top and aslippery foundation? The under belly of the SA game is suffering . . . and this is thegreatest indictment not just of SA soccer but SA society in general’ (SaturdayArgus, 29 September 2007).

Absence of a national strategy for training and development at the grassrootshas produced a vacuum that in the Western Cape is partially filled by the activitiesof elite PSL clubs. Both Ajax Cape Town and Santos have high-quality youthsystems that have churned out many good players in recent years. Ajax, forinstance, has trained numerous young players who have cemented positions inthe PSL and have also played for their country at either senior or junior level(and sometimes both). By way of example, the older group includes StantonLewis (now at Ajax Amsterdam), Brett Evans, Dominic Isaacs, Dillon Sheppard,Moeneeb Josephs, and Shaun Potgieter. The newer crop of rising stars includesThembinkosi Fanteni (now at Sundowns), Bryce Moon, Clayton Jagers, MfundoShumana, and Mkhanyiseli Siwahla. Among the most recent Capetonians tohave had trials in Amsterdam were Nazeer Allie, Sameehg Doutie and CliffordNgobeni. Seventeen-year-old Daylon Claasen spent a few weeks at Real Madridthis year and seems likely to move to Europe in the near future. Similarly,Santos has nurtured several quality players since the late 1990s, includingNasief Morris (now at Panathinaikos Athens), Tyron Arendse (Sundowns),Erwin Isaacs, Eleazar Rodgers, and Ryan Chapman. The relative success ofAjax and Santos in training young players for professional careers hides a grimsituation: ‘We are made to believe that because FIFA handed us the 2010World Cup event, all football structures would simply benefit from the gold andglitter’, said goalkeeper coach and columnist Farouk Abrahams. ‘Well allow meto shoot down that notion because I believe that unless the bounty is spreadmore evenly down the scale, South African football will remain a lopsidedentity with a head that sparkles with diamond studs and gem stones while therest of the body is draped with flea-ridden fabric’ (Cape Times, 28 September2007).

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South Africa’s enthusiastic participation in a global political economy offootball dominated by FIFA, transnational corporations and media companies—entities which profit handsomely from the production of the most popular sportingevent on the planet—points to a complex set of dynamics accelerating the under-development of grassroots football. The country’s experience in successfullyhosting international sporting events (e.g. 1995 Rugby World Cup, 1996African Nations Cup, 1999 All-Africa Games, and 2003 Cricket World Cup)has convinced political and business leaders that the 2010 FIFA World Cup ismainly about national pride and achievement and about marketing a ‘brandSouth Africa’ (i.e. modern, democratic, business-friendly, tourist destination) tobillions of potential tourists and investors around the globe (cf. Burbank et al.,2001; Morgan et al., 2002; Black and Van der Westhuizen, 2004). For FIFA’spart, 2010 will further globalise its most valuable economic asset and mayenhance the organisation’s profile as a force for cultural diplomacy in internationalrelations.11 As the build up to June 2010 gathers pace, government, big business,organised labour, and FIFA are focusing on meeting construction deadlines andsatisfying extraordinarily high technical requirements for stadiums, media facili-ties, accommodation, security, and overall infrastructure. In many ways, SouthAfrica is preparing to host a successful World Cup.

Conclusion

A critical analysis of 2010 FIFA World Cup stadium building in Cape Town andits potential effects on community-based grassroots sports draws attention to theways in which a ‘global media-sport complex’ (Maguire, 1999, pp. 144–175)has shaped dominant interests and agendas within South Africa. Bolstered by itsmonopolistic power and the vigorous support of local organisers and thetourism industry, FIFA was able to extract the monumental Green Pointstadium from the Cape Town municipality and the national government.Because the nation-state’s commitment to hosting a successful tournament thatmarkets ‘brand South Africa’ to the world depends to a significant extent onstadium construction, it has allocated roughly half of the R18 billion budget forthe 2010 World Cup (Manuel, 2007) for world-class stadiums in Cape Town,Durban, Port Elizabeth, Nelspruit, and Polokwane. In absolute terms, this sumof money may seem relatively minor in the context of a growing and globalisingSouth African economy (see Hirsch, 2005). But given widespread poverty, highunemployment, lack of housing, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and other massivesocial problems in South Africa (including the Western Cape), it is worth high-lighting how ‘at the microeconomic level, stadium costs are substantial andcannot be overlooked. If these funds were diverted to other programs, theywould profoundly affect many people’ (Trumpbour, 2007, p. 56). As internationalresearch has shown (e.g. Whitson and Macintosh, 1993), public subsidies for sta-diums often lead to cut backs or more expensive use of community sporting facili-ties. If this were to occur in post-apartheid South Africa it would undermine, ratherthan strengthen, sorely needed development of grassroots sport.

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Having subsidised stadium construction in a wealthy and overwhelmingly whitearea without proper consultation, and unable to afford the steep price of WorldCup match tickets, there is a real danger that in 2010 the majority of Capetonians,black and working-class, will be reduced to exercising cultural citizenship.12

While the actual plans are sketchy at this time, it is quite possible that ordinarySouth Africans’ tournament experience will be limited to watching matches onoutdoor screens set up in tightly policed FIFA ‘Fan Parks’—spaces in whichpeople might be expected to infuse this global mega-event with an ‘African’flavour. This result would replicate what happened in the 1995 Rugby WorldCup and the 2003 Cricket World Cup, when the ‘rich would watch the games instadiums and the poor provide[d] entertainment in the streets afterward’ (Desaiet al., 2002, p. 442).

Unless radical changes take place over the next 20 months, the 2010 World Cupin South Africa will bring out some important contradictions tied to mega-eventdevelopment. Government investment in infrastructure could benefit thePremier Soccer League by raising attendance, enhancing spectator comfort andsafety, and improving administration and marketing. But these subsidies wouldhardly curb the game’s spiral of decline in historically disadvantaged urban town-ships, schools, and rural communities. That the 2010 World Cup may result ingreater inequality between elite professional clubs and grassroots teams mirrorsrecent macroeconomic trends in South Africa. As Jeremy Seekings and NicoliNattrass have shown, after apartheid ‘declining interracial inequality wasaccompanied by rising intraracial inequality’ (Seekings and Nattrass, 2005,p. 307). In this changing political economy, the construction of a new WorldCup stadium in Cape Town starkly illustrates how mega-events can exacerbateinternal inequalities within host cities and nations.

Yet as preparations accelerate, the potentially polarising impact of 2010 isseldom discussed or critically examined. Instead public and private broadcast,internet, and print media campaigns in South Africa continue to function asagents of World Cup boosterism, stressing the attractions and advantages of2010 while dismissing calls for reflection as examples of Afro-pessimism orworse. This dominant discourse shows that the World Cup in South Africa, likemega-events elsewhere, serves as an instrument of the hegemonic power of politi-cal and economic elites (cf. Hiller, 2000; Waitt, 2001). According to opinionsurveys conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council (www.hsrc.ac.za/Media_Release-311.phtml) and the City of Cape Town (www.capetown.gov.za,2 July 2007), football fans and the broader public (especially the black poor)are excited about the tournament and, for better or worse, tend to legitimise theagendas and interests of both FIFA and the LOC.

While local and international promoters exude confidence about 2010’scapacity to generate patriotic unity and a much-desired branding effect, some foot-ball practitioners in the Western Cape voice the interests of marginalised individ-uals and communities unable to participate in or profit from 2010. ‘Is there no onein power with the sincerity and the vision to channel some of the funds into moredeserving causes?’, asks Farouk Abrahams. ‘How does anyone with the welfare of

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football at heart not feel for the thousands of aspirant footballers running aroundthe country’s dusty streets kicking homemade footballs due to lack of properfacilities, equipment, football league structures, and the life skills component socrucial to the holistic development of our young boys and girls?’ (Cape Times,28 September 2007).

Notes� Assistant Professor, Department of History, Michigan State University, USA. Email: alegi@msu.edu.

Thanks go to the author’s research assistant Leslie Hadfield for her meticulous work in locating newsreports on 2010 stadium construction, as well as to Scarlett Cornelissen, Rodney Reiners, and three anon-ymous reviewers for helpful suggestions. An earlier version of this paper benefited from feedback receivedat the 2007 African Studies Association meeting in New York during a panel on ‘Small Teams, Big Issues:Soccer, Citizenship and Politics Beyond Elite-level Football in Africa’, organised by Susann Baller.

1. In a separate paper entitled ‘A Nation to be Reckoned With’: The Politics of Stadium Construction in SouthAfrica’, I argue that the 2010 World Cup can be understood mainly as a national project aimed to enhance theprestige and credibility of the South African nation-state and its leaders. For an earlier critical analysis of theSouth African bid committee’s economic claims about the event’s impact, see Alegi (2001).

2. A note about racial terminology: the apartheid regime classified South Africans into four main racial groups:White, Indian (or Asian), Coloured, and African. Coloured is a catch-all term that describes descendants of awide variety of people, including indigenous Khoikhoi and San; slaves from Africa and Asia; and of raciallymixed unions. I use the term ‘black’ to refer collectively to all groups of people who were (are) not white. Thedifferent racial terms are used only where appropriate, or when they appear in the sources; this usage howeverdoes not imply acceptance by the author.

3. Sporting culture in the Cape is also unusual because of the popularity of rugby and cricket among the blackpopulation; see Odendaal (1995, 2003), Allie (2000), and Nongogo (2004).

4. I was unable to find data to confirm this statement. Attempts to contact the office of SAFA Western Capewere unsuccessful.

5. Founded in 1996–1997, the PSL is the successor to the National Soccer League, formed on a non-racial basisin 1985 (Alegi, 2004, pp. 143–144).

6. Martin Pollack, ‘City Punts Athlone Stadium to “Positive” FIFA’, available at http://www.capetown.gov.za/clusters/viewarticle3.asp?conid¼11748 (accessed 6 March 2007).

7. Cape Town’s World Cup business plan was later linked to consumption- and development-based policiesarticulated in the municipal Integrated Development Plan; the provincial Growth and Development Strategy;and the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (ASGISA), which in 2006 replaced theten-year-old GEAR macroeconomic strategy. While all sectors of government are expected to work together,the municipality’s main duty is to ensure compliance with the obligations set in the Host City Agreement withFIFA; the Province is expected to focus more on development and promotion

8. Reuters, ‘FIFA Profits Boosted by World Cup Success’, 23 March 2007, available at http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug¼reu-fifafinances&prov¼reuters&type¼lgns (accessed 2 April 2007). FIFAprofits from 2006 totalled 303 Swiss francs (US$250 million), a huge increase from US$140 million on rev-enues of $1.65 billion in 2002. For budget data, see FIFA Financial Report 2004, p. 18, available at http://www.fifa.com/documents/fifa/publication/FIFA_Financial_Report_E_2004.pdf (accessed 2 April 2007).FIFA’s GOAL development project has had important ramifications in Africa, some of which are discussedin Darby (2002, pp. 156–159).

9. Martin Pollack, ‘Design and Planning Team for Green Point Chosen’, available at http://www.capetown.gov.za/clusters/viewarticle3.asp?conid¼12416 (accessed 6 March 2007). Note that FIFA requires aminimum seating capacity of 60,000 for a World Cup semi-final match.

10. For analysis of how political and economic elites in South Africa since the 1990s have mutually benefitedfrom similar arrangements see Gumede (2002) and Adam et al. (1997, pp. 201–225).

11. Some scholars have noted that awarding the 2010 tournament to South Africa pays back African represen-tatives who lent Sepp Blatter crucial electoral support in FIFA’s 1998, 2002, and 2006 Presidential ballots(Darby, 2002; Cornelissen, 2004).

12. In the United States, the issue of publicly funded sport stadiums has received considerable scholarly atten-tion. For example, see Trumpbour (2007); Noll and Zimbalist (1997); and Siegfried and Zimbalist (2000).

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