South Africa one day after the World Cup 2010

The final figures are still being tallied. However, even one day after the closing ceremony was held and the final game played on Sunday 12 July, it is possible to say that the FIFA 2010 World Cup, the first to be hosted on the African continent, has had a huge impact on South Africa.

So, what exactly has the tournament brought to the country, besides the explosion in the sales of vuvuzelas that cheered some and annoyed others on the stadiums (and off) and in the sales of flags that became a de rigueur statement on all sorts on vehicles on South African streets?

The triumphs

Even though the national team fell out of the tournament at an early stage, the general consensus is that South Africa as a country has won. Not only did the tournament boost the local economy; it has also given South Africa a promise of further uniting a country that still bears the scars of division.

In all sectors of the population there is a feeling of pride because the World Cup has been a success. The sceptics were proven wrong. The stadiums have been finished on time. The organisation has been good. The football crowds have been happy. The visitors were impressed. Crime and violence have been minimal.

South African government has spent about R40 billion on preparations for the tournament. And while analysts estimate that only R13 billion will be recouped in short term, from foreign visitors' spending, long term benefits are potentially much bigger.

The government representatives point to the creation of 130,000 jobs as one of the most important immediate gains and say that the full rewards of the tournament will be reaped for years and years to come. It is also believed that the success of the World Cup will boost domestic business confidence, despite indications that the global economy may suffer a depressed economic outlook for the medium term.

On top of that, the overwhelmingly positive international coverage of the World Cup and its host surpassed even most optimistic expectations. The goodwill that has been thus generated is truly priceless.

The letdowns

Yes, there have been a few of those too. Fist, some of the visitors found themselves shivering during the unusually (well, low temperatures are not all that unusual at this time of the year) cold Johannesburg winter nights.

More serious was the havoc involving the commercial flight delays and the refusal of pilots of private planes to move their machinery that resulted in about 600 passengers not attending the semifinal game in Durban. The Airports Company of SA will probably have to reimburse the fans whose planes were re-routed or turned back, and the final figure could amount to quite a sum.

Another waste is the R110 million (or much more, as some local media claim) that the government departments, public enterprises and municipalities have spent on World Cup tickets. This lavishness has especially angered trade unions. The latter are expected to embark on a fresh wave of industrial actions in support of wage rise demands that are, according to many, unbecoming in a country where the official rate of unemployment stands at about 25 percent.

Perhaps the most worrying are the insistent reports of imminent acts of xenophobia, similar to the ones from 2008, when many poor immigrants – many of them refugees – from neighbouring African countries were targeted by the equally poor locals for “stealing their jobs” and “robbing their homes”.

It difficult to tie such reports with the geniality and hospitality that foreign visitors enjoyed in South Africa during the World Cup.

Moving on

As is to be expected in such a diverse country, the legacy of the World Cup 2010 promises to be a mixed one. The art, of course, will be to build on the good and right the bad.

The euphoria will soon die down and South Africa will have to turn again to the problems of poverty, unemployment and inequality. The World Cup 2010 has shown that South Africans, given tight, no-excuse deadline, can do the job. It is now up to the country to set its own problem-solving goals, impose the deadlines – and do the job, this time without outside supervision that FIFA provided.

The immediate concern seems to be to think of the ways to utilise all those newly built stadiums and make them bring in some profit. The idea about hosting the Olympic Games has already been put forward. However, since Olympic Games are few and far between, it is to be hoped that more sports will some South African way, now that the county had been put firmly on the big sporting events map.

Some World Cup 2010 figures

• Some economists estimate that the World Cup might have added half a percentage point to the South African GDP.
• The local organising committee says that the target of 450,000 visitors for the 2010 World Cup has probably been reached.
• According to FIFA, the attendance at stadiums during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa stood at 3.18 million after all 64 games. This is the third highest attendance of all World Cup tournaments, with the US in 1998 recording an attendance of 3.59 million people and Germany in 2006 recording 3.36 million. Match attendance in South Africa was on the average 49,670 per game.
• More than 13 000 journalists, including staff members from 200 broadcasting entities, covered Africa's first FIFA World Cup.
• The opening match between South Africa and Mexico had a local TV viewership of 7.7 million, a record for South Africa.
• Vuvuzela sales have climbed from 20,000 a month to 20,000 a day (and that was in June, prior to the opening of the World Cup).
• A London-based translation company with 2, 600 linguists in over 60 countries voted  the term vuvuzela as the word "that has made the biggest impact on the 2010 World Cup, and that it will be best remembered for".

Image: Media Club South Africa