Winning with the World Cup

It would take a very special optimist to expect South Africa’s Bafana Bafana to be the team that walks off with the Fifa Soccer World Cup trophy come 11 July this year.

But South Africa can, should, and most probably will, win off the pitch at this year’s World Cup. In fact, we can go a long way toward putting the ever present African pessimism to rest, doing our continent as a whole a huge favour.

That hosting the biggest international event on the globe would bring tensions and stress is only natural. Simply think about the petty fights and edginess that a big wedding can bring about in a family. But, when the big date finally arrives, it is time for the family to close ranks and turn their friendly, smiling attention to their guests.

That is where we are now as a South African nation – it is time to turn our full, friendly and smiling attention to our guests.

We would want them to think fondly of us as a nation whenever they reflect on the time they spent in “Africa”. Likewise, we would want the one billion or so television viewers who will be following the tournament to have gathered positive impressions of our country.

If we are able to achieve these two goals alone, we already will have become a winning nation at World Cup 2010.

In many instances, things were not perfect in the run-up to the tournament in terms of establishing the infrastructure and amenities for the World Cup, but it was very far from the embarrassing failure that so many pessimists had predicted. I, for one, often get mightily irritated by the righteous arrogance of Fifa and some of its top functionaries, but we did get an opportunity to prove we can handle the big occasions.

Concerning the costs involved, it is unlikely that the final word will be spoken soon, if ever. Now, 18 years later, the Spaniards are still arguing about the costs/benefits of the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.

The fact is, however, that once the World Cup is over, our host cities will have not only splendid sporting amenities but, more importantly, vastly improved transport networks and systems (including world-class airports), upgraded management skills and important entries in their ‘CVs’ as global destinations.

For this alone, we should already be claiming to be winners at the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup.

Piet Coetzer