YEAH, YEAH, yeah, pull the other one, it’s got bells on, $10 million worth of bells on, US dollars nogal (say R100 million). OK, hands up anyone (no, not you, sir, you should be back in Fort Napier mental institution), hands up anyone who DOESN’T now believe that we bribed our way to hosting the World Cup back in 2010?
You, madam, you don’t believe it?
Pardon? You say because we have good, solid, reliable, honest, public spirited, conscientious, ethical, trustworthy, noble, selfless people in high places who are incorruptible, who are as pure as driven snow? I see. And which planet do you come from? Mars, your anus, Pluto? Oh, you come from Nkandla. Well, we take what you say with a pinch of salt, actually, more like a bucket of salt.
I dunno. When the story broke that South Africa had bribed certain FIFA officials in order to get them to vote in our favour, I have to say I was really disappointed. It sullied the whole memory of the 2010 World Cup for me.
I think we were daft to want to host the World Cup, it was a stupid ambition born of… I don’t know what, pride? Now, as I write this, five years later to the day, what exactly are the benefits that are still being felt considering that we spent at least R27 billion, yes BILLION, in hosting it? None, really. The Gautrain? Not many people in Vryheid benefit from that, do they?
The stadiums that were built, they are surely running at a loss. I think that the SABC’s cameramen at football games played at these stadiums, are given instructions not to point their cameras at the empty seats. Meanwhile, the SABC’s sound man, the dude who captures the sound effects, is given instructions to place his microphones right among the few spectators on the seats behind the players’ benches, and to turn the volume up.
So if you watch some of these PSL games on SABC, you get the impression that the stadium is packed, whereas if the camera happens to stray above the advertising boards you’ll see the stadium is all but empty.
How do they pay for the maintenance, the lights and water, the security, the mowers, the fertiliser… the ordinary running expenses of a huge stadium, when the revenue (except if it’s Kaiser Chiefs vs Pirates) from the spectators wouldn’t buy the Sports Minister a new suit?
It’s a bit like our Cultural Village that sits rotting in the sun at Klipfontein Dam. At the time of its construction they talked about all the benefits that would accrue to us here in AbaQulusi Municipality, and so far this Cultural Village – that cost, what? R4 million was it, or R6 million? – has brought in revenue of exactly NIL. Zero, Zilch, Boggerall.
In fact, like the stadiums, it COSTS us money every minute of every hour of every day. There’s a 24-hour guard on the site, and has been for years and years. Quite seriously, the Cultural Village would be better off financially if it were demolished.
Quite seriously, the same applies to some of the new stadiums. Demolish them, distribute the seats, fixtures and fittings to smaller clubs with small grounds. That would be a more practical 2010 legacy.
Having said all that, once I’d accepted that the World Cup was coming to South Africa in 2010, I admit that I was an optimist. Lots of people I knew said, “It’s going to be a total disaster, they couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery,” and I disagreed with them. I don’t know why, I just thought and hoped that it would be a huge success, even if Vryheid itself saw very little direct benefit.
And we didn’t, did we? There was no huge influx of tourists here, in fact I recollect that there was no noticeable difference in bed-occupancy recorded by Vryheid Tourism. I remember only that we got to give breakfast to bus loads of Australians who were travelling from Durban to Nelspruit where their team was playing.
But I’ll never forget that Friday, that Friday in June 2010 when the World Cup kicked off. The feeling in town was incredible, there was a palpable excitement in the streets, we were actually happy. It was extraordinary. You could hear vuvuzelas being blown all over town.
Kick off was at 4:00pm and we played Mexico. And when ol’ Siphiwe Tshabalala scored the very first goal of the tournament, I was among the millions of idiots in the country who thought we actually had a chance of winning not only that game but the whole damn thing. And when we didn’t, it didn’t seem to matter.
And now, five years later the bribery scandal hits the headlines, which has had all the South Africa politicians and officials involved with the bid scuttling around like cockroaches at midnight when you turn the kitchen light on.
Come on, be serious, we give $10 million to the Caribbean for “football development” while Bhekuzulu and Lakeside football grounds don’t even have nets on their goalposts? Even ol’ Tokyo Sexwale is quoted by the BBC as saying, “Where are the documents, where are the invoices, where are the budgets, where are the projects on the ground?”
Can I tell you what it’s like? It’s like having very fond memories of a particular love affair, and then five years later learning that she was a whore.
