Guest Post by *Liz Timbs
In August 2013, I had the privilege of spending three days with the Izichwe Football Club in Pietermaritzburg, capital of South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. During my brief stay, I observed training sessions, visited players’ high schools, and interviewed some of the young men and coaches. The quotes below come from these conversations.
Every weekday afternoon at the University of KwaZulu-Natal campus in Pietermaritzburg, two dozen 10th grade-boys come together on a humble football pitch to hone their skills at Izichwe Football Club. Established in 2010 and named after the first military regiment (ibutho) commanded by Shaka Zulu, the club is “not just about kicking a ball,” says Thabo Dladla, founding director of Izichwe and Director of Soccer at UKZN. It is also about developing young men of character and respect who represent their communities and themselves with pride and honor.
Respect (inhlonipho in the Zulu language) and discipline (inkuliso) are core values at Izichwe as they are in Zulu culture more broadly. The coaches refer to the teenagers as amadoda (umarried young men) and even baba (father) to stress the importance of carrying themselves in a mature way on and off the pitch.
These two dozen high school boys at Izichwe embody the values and lessons imparted to them by their coaches, especially Thabo’s emphasis on showing self-respect as much as respect for others. When I spoke with the youngsters, they politely thanked me for coming to Pietermaritzburg to meet them and spoke with poise beyond their years.
“The program is not only about sports or soccer. It’s mostly about life,” Asanda tells me. Izichwe is “about respecting the people you are around, and playing fair, which applies in life. You do it the right way. Don’t cheat. Don’t cheat yourself.” Similarly, Simphiwe stated, without hesitation, that Izichwe had taught him “to work hard in life and to respect your instructors.” Asanda and Simphiwe’s statements were echoed in a team meeting I observed. Technical director Mhlanga Madondo, a police officer, entreated the players to look at their performances in the previous weekend’s tournament, stating that he expected them to “take responsibility for their own growth.”
Hard work is another crucial component of the Izichwe way. When I asked Lindi what the program had given him, he said, simply: “discipline.” Every day, without exception, the boys make their way to the university sports fields to train from 3:30p.m. to 5:30p.m. Many of the boys also play for their school teams at least one day a week (with one boy competing in cross country events in addition to playing school soccer). Saturday is match day in a local amateur league. Sundays are reserved for tournaments. This intense, demanding schedule instills in the boys not only physical endurance and strength, but mental acuity as well. Dladla believes this constant pressure shows the dedication and perseverance of his players. “Boys like Siphesehle (the cross country runner), he’s very, very competitive, you know? He did cross country; he came [to training], and I said, “Hey! You rest!” He said, “No, coach! I came to train!”
Although the players’ development as athletes is central to the program, Thabo, a former teacher and ex-professional footballer, regularly reminds players that “nothing in this life is as important as knowledge.” As a result, the program integrates numerous educational programs into their activities. Every night at the conclusion of practice, around 5:30, a group of the players gathers in a classroom on campus to study under the supervision of volunteer university students.
The coaches closely monitor individuals’ academic performance by reviewing school progress reports. This scrutiny, one parent explained, helps to “notice any hiccups in their progress at school.” In the opinion of Devon, the life sciences teacher at Alexandra High School, which several Izichwe boys attend, such devoted attention to player’s academics is unusual when compared with many other students who lack such careful supervision. “It’s a structured lifestyle which, I think, is lacking in a lot of our schools,” Devon explained. “I think that’s partly why these boys are so successful. They grow and they excel in every area.”
The youngsters openly expressed their gratitude to the adults who put precious time, energy, and resources into the program. “There are many kids out there who want this opportunity and we are very special to get that,” Mpumelelo said. Sandile stated unequivocally that the program has “changed the most part of my life.” Keelyn agreed, and without hesitation added that thanks to Izichwe, “I found myself.” Sandile spoke passionately about his appreciation for Izichwe: “Basically, what this program means to me is that it gives me the opportunity to realize a dream that I never thought . . . it was never something I believed I’d be able to do . . . it just made me realize, if I continue working hard enough, I can be one of the best players in the world.”
The Izichwe coaches are also grateful to be part of this project. Coach Madondo said that working with these young men has inspired him; he’s seen them “not just growing physically, but also [in] how to approach life.” Coach Ronnie “Reese” Chetty, who had a long coaching career including experiences in the United States, told me he is reinvigorated by the hard work and dedication these young men exhibit on a daily basis. The coaches are also driven and guided by the hardships, struggles, and perseverance of some of the players and families.
“It’s people like Sipesehle and Mhlengi’s mothers who sometimes give me lots of motivation when I see how hard they try, you know?” explained Thabo Dladla. “So then, I say: ‘Hey man! I cannot give up. I cannot let them down. So let me try and help them develop real men,’ you know?”
And from what I saw these Izichwe boys are becoming real men of immense diligence, humility, discipline, and respect. And, perhaps even more so, this community of boys, men, and parents demonstrates the great potential for grassroots soccer programs to fuel the development of not only athletic talent with a bright future in sport, but also of productive citizens in a democratic society.
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*Liz Timbs is a PhD student in African history at Michigan State University. Her research interests are in the history of health and healing in South Africa; the professionalization of medicine; masculinity studies; and comparative studies between South Africa and the United States. Follow her on Twitter: @tizlimbs
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Football 150: Conference Report
Guest Post by Dr. Matthew L. McDowell
The new home of the National Football Museum, the Urbis Building in Manchester, was the site of an international conference on September 2-4, 2013, celebrating the 150th anniversary of England’s Football Association. The event welcomed a group of around sixty speakers and an even larger group of delegates from different disciplines interested in the past, present, and future of football: its culture, its finances, its development, and its governance.
The varied affiliations of the participants made for some rather productive tension: critics of world football’s leaders and patrons rubbed shoulders with officials from the FA and UEFA, and no words were minced. Sir Trevor Brooking’s appearance at the outset of the conference, and Karen Espelund’s keynote address on the final day, were sandwiched around acclaimed author David Goldblatt’s second-day keynote: a brilliant, scathing, and often surreal account of FIFA in relation to the Brazilian riots of this past summer, which occurred while the Confederations Cup was staged in the country. (Those who were at the address will never think of AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells” in the same way again.) All in all, it made for a highly enjoyable three days, and the National Football Museum (especially Dr. Jane Clayton and Dr. Alex Jackson) and the University of Central Lancashire’s International Football Institute pulled out all of the stops to ensure that all of us working within the broad continuum of “football studies” felt at home.
After Brooking’s interview with UCLan’s John Hughson – one of the driving forces behind the gathering – Tony Mason of De Montfort University, a renowned expert on English football’s history, introduced us to previous commemorations of the FA’s anniversary: some lavish, some passing barely noticed. I attended various sessions afterwards. Naturally, I leaned toward history: Tony Collins, Roy Hay, and Gavin Kitching formed an excellent panel advocating more research into what Collins called the “primordial soup” of football in the pre-Association era. The term “football,” as both Hay and Kitching stated, was representative of a very broad church prior to 1850, and was not confined to the “public school” sphere. Afterwards, I attended a session on the history of ‘soccer’ in the United States, with my native New Jersey finding its way into both Brian Bunk’s and David Kilpatrick’s papers: Bunk discussed the football-playing circle of the mid-nineteenth century Princeton University, while Kilpatrick discussed the colorful, controversial and recently-revived New York Cosmos, whose 1970s’ home was the NFL’s Giants Stadium. The “Nostalgia and Design” panel, which featured Jean Williams, Graham Deakin, Ffion Thomas and Chris Stride teased out the meanings in some of football’s most iconic (and, in the case of Shoot and Goal magazines, not-so-iconic) images through various media.
The second and third days featured their fair share of highlights. Notable among them was Gary James, who gave us a glimpse into late-nineteenth/early-twentieth century football in Manchester, a subject long neglected by academic historians. Matthew Klugman, Svenja Mintert, and Jessica Richards, meanwhile, discussed their own pioneering research, and their attempts to examine the emotions, desires and suspicions of “the fans” in a wide variety of time periods, places, and guises. (Richards, whose ethnographic research examines the match-day rituals and gender performance of Everton supporters, candidly discussed the risks associated with field work.) Meanwhile, “The Role of the Individual,” which featured Clayton, Jackson, and Dilwyn Porter, critically examined the mythology of some of football’s greatest characters, in relation to the archival material which actually exists regarding them. Referees, it seems, took great pains to present themselves in a heroic light against agents of chaos: Porter’s examination of 1930s referee Percy Harper stated that that Harper featured death threats from supporters in his own personal archive, perhaps as kinds of trophies. The ‘World Cup’ panel featured its own fair share of surprises. Though Peter Alegi could not make it to discuss his history of South Africa 2010 (the perils of transatlantic travel!), Marion Stell and Daniel Malanski examined FIFA’s global showcase in relation to Australian and Brazilian football history respectively, showing us that domestic politics inevitably colors how individual nations view participation in the tournament.
One wonders what Football 200 will look like. Will the ‘beautiful game’ continue to stress the paradoxes of being the world’s most popular sport, while at the same time being a focal point for fierce tribalism? Will we be bemoaning the “good old days” of the 2010s, a day before money, political correctness, and middle-class sanitisation took their toll on the viewing experience of the people? The thread of nostalgia has always run through popular perceptions of what the game should be; and, as Football 150 and its constituent presentations have shown, there is no one unified consensus on what the game has represented, or what it continues to demonstrate regarding our world. It is as confused as we are; and perhaps that, above all, is the appropriate message of the conference.
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Dr. Matthew L. McDowell is a lecturer in sport and recreation management at the University of Edinburgh, Moray House School of Education. He was written on the early history of Scottish association football, and is currently researching Scotland’s history with the Empire and Commonwealth Games competitions, and early North Atlantic footballing cultural encounters. Follow him on Twitter: @MattLMcDowell
By Bruce Berglund (cross-posted from @NewBookSports)
In 2010, for the first time, an African nation hosted the FIFA World Cup. The advertisements surrounding the tournament used graphics and sounds intended to conjure the image of a vibrant, exotic land. In fact, though, the African-ness of the South African World Cup was pretty thin, when not wholly fabricated. For example, the music that introduced ESPN’s World Cup coverage sounded very African, as it opened with the sounding of an ox horn (the promo showed a bare-chested tribesman blowing the horn atop a mountain, silhouetted against the setting sun) and then built with pulsing drums and a choir singing layered refrains. But the piece had been written by a composer from Utah, the musicians had recorded it in Utah, and the choir consisted of members of the Broadway cast of The Lion King. At least Shakira’s ubiquitous song “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)” had a more substantial African connection. It had been lifted, initially without credit, from a Cameroonian military song made popular in the 1980s by the group Golden Sounds.
The ironies of the 2010 tournament in South Africa are revealed in a number of essays in Africa’s World Cup: Critical Reflections on Play, Patriotism, Spectatorship, and Space (University of Michigan Press, 2013), edited by Peter Alegi and Chris Bolsmann. In the interview with Peter, we learn of the findings and observations of the volume’s contributors: an international collection of anthropologists, architectural critics, bloggers, geographers, sociologists, journalists, photographers, and former players who all attended matches in South Africa. They make sharp criticisms of class divides at the venues, the nationalism and commercialism, and, of course, the imperial reach of FIFA. But as we hear from Peter, the book’s authors were also fans. When mixing with other fans outside the stadiums, and then cheering their teams when the matches began, even normally skeptical academics and journalists were caught up in the event. Their experiences show that, for all its faults, the FIFA World Cup is still an incomparable event.
Click here to download the mp3 of the interview.
Watch this great 20-minute documentary film on the tension and violence that accompanied the memorable Algeria-Egypt 2010 World Cup qualifiers.
Lots of rare footage captures the perspectives and experiences of the Algerian players and officials in both Cairo and Khartoum. Watch as the mainly France-based Les Fennecs players channel fear, insecurity, and rage into a memorable playoff victory and World Cup qualification. The scenes of joyous celebration among the traveling fans and players in Sudan, as well as the partying in the streets of Algiers are something to behold.
The film provides glimpses of both sides of the fútbol-nationalism coin. On the one hand, the Egyptian hooligans’ love of country expresses itself through hatred of the Algerian “other” and spills over into the vicious attacks on the visiting team’s bus depicted in the film. On the other hand, the Algerians’ patriotic unity propels them to victory against their rivals. Raw and riveting stuff.
Thanks to Mezahi Maher (@MezahiMaher) for the English subtitles!
150 years after Ebenezer Morley and alumni of several elite schools founded the Football Association at the Freemasons’ Tavern in Great Queen Street, London, the Football 150 academic conference celebrates this historic anniversary. The gathering of soccerati takes place on 2-4 September at the National Football Museum in Manchester, UK. It is a joint project of the NFM, International Football Institute (University of Central Lancashire), and International Centre for Sports History and Culture (De Montfort University). The conference’s stated aims are “to reflect on the history of the Football Association and develop a blueprint for the future of the game and its study.”
Keynote speakers include historians Tony Mason, author David Goldblatt, and UEFA Executive Committee member Karen Espelund. A rich program features panels on the game’s global history, art, fan cultures and identities, migration, governance, media, and its broader social, political, and economic implications. The Arab Football Forum 2013 on Wednesday, September 4, will grapple with the potential impact of Qatar 2022 on MENA countries, the political role of football in the wake of the Arab spring, and women’s football.
My paper is part of a larger ongoing project on the history of South Africa’s hosting of the 2010 World Cup. Drawing from my digital archive of thousands of news items about the World Cup accumulated over nearly a decade, as well as government documents, published reports, oral testimony, personal observations, as well as the scholarly literature, the study argues that SA2010 reveals a paradox. On the one hand, South Africa’s image and influence in global football reached unprecedented heights thanks to the successful hosting of the tournament. But on the other hand, the overall social health of the local game (excepting a handful of elite clubs) suffered, particularly at the amateur, school, and youth level. In a small way, this paper addresses the lack of academic histories of World Cup tournaments and aims to generate discussion about the complex political, economic and cultural dynamics of football, particularly as they relate to South Africa, Africa, and more broadly to the Global South. (For more details on the topic, see my new co-edited book, with Chris Bolsmann, Africa’s World Cup.)
On my way to Manchester, it seems fitting to meet David Kilpatrick at the Freemasons Arms in London, “the spiritual home of the FA.” After a suitably English dining experience (whatever that means and entails), we’ll make our pilgrimage to the Emirates Stadium for my first North London derby!
Track conference proceedings via Twitter with the #Football150 hashtag and follow these participants: @DrDKilpatrick @ChrisBolsmann @SoccerHistoryUS @JeanMWilliams @FromaLeftWing @Davidsgoldblatt @MattLMcDowell @collinstony @mideastsoccer @j_richo1990 @GaryJamesWriter @StaceyPope20 @ShelleyBBC @ffion_ @mateobrown @DavidChilds @futbolprof
Categories
Education Through Fútbol
Guest Post by *Liz Timbs
This summer, I was granted the opportunity to work as a teaching assistant (with Hikabwa Chipande) for Peter Alegi’s online course Culture of Soccer. Part of Michigan State University’s general education requirements, this 7-week interdisciplinary course explores global soccer in historical and contemporary perspective, analyzing fútbol’s changing relationship with race, class, gender, ethnicity, economics, and media. The course took place mainly on a self-hosted WordPress site on the open web. In this blog post, I want to reflect on some aspects of online teaching that not only changed the way I think about pedagogy and learning, but also altered the way I conceptualize the global game.
In the past year, my knowledge of fútbol has expanded exponentially. Beginning my doctoral program at MSU, it seemed that I was suddenly engulfed in the global game. My advisor, Peter Alegi, is considered one of the foremost experts on African soccer (see Laduma!, African Soccerscapes, and the just-released Africa’s World Cup); my roommate played club soccer in college; my dear friend Hikabwa Chipande is doing his doctoral research on soccer in Zambia; many of my friends are dedicated to various European teams, and the game continues to crop up in my readings for various courses.
Culture of Soccer (aka ISS328) allowed me to not only learn from the course materials, but also from the students who brought their own perspectives and generated insights via their weekly blogs. Here are a few things I learned as an instructor in this course about soccer and about the collaborative relationship between teachers and students.
1. Sport = Icebreaker
From the very first week, this course illustrated what a powerful icebreaker sport can be. Often, university students come in “blind,” with limited knowledge of the topics and themes being explored. In ISS328, the approximately 100 students may have entered with only a basic notion of global soccer culture, but their highly diverse sporting experiences and knowledge enabled them to connect to the material. In the first week, students were required to comment on this post on soccer as religion. Even in the very early stages of the course, students brought nuanced approaches to this subject, drawing on their experiences as fans, athletes, and citizens of the world. Students began a dialogue not only amongst themselves, but also with Peter, Chipande, and myself. Sport proved to be a fantastic icebreaker, which set the mood for the rest of the course.
2. Interdisciplinarity = Insight
The students for ISS328 came from a wide range of academic majors and specialties, ranging from advertising, packaging, and English to nursing, kinesiology, and early childhood development (to name but a few). These diverse disciplinary interests came to the surface most clearly in Week 3, during which we explored fandom through the Hillsborough Tragedy and Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch. In particular, quite a few students who major in psychology and early childhood development offered nuanced analyses of Hornby’s relationships with his family and the connections these relationships had to his fanatical obsession with Arsenal (for example, see this blog post). These contributions seemed to inspire their fellow classmates to think about the readings in new ways and to incorporate those perspectives into subsequent writings for the course. Furthermore, they enhanced my understanding of the material and forced me to stretch my own intellectual development as I responded to their writing through comments and emails.
3. Fandom Is A Universal Language
ISS328 attracted athletes and sports enthusiasts, from the most serious to the loosely casual. These men and women were not only soccer players and fans, but also rowers, hockey players, and aficionados of a wide variety of sports. Again, in Week 3, students offered really insightful comparisons between their own experiences as sports fanatics with that of Hornby’s obsessive relationship with the game (for example, see this post, this post, and this post, as just a few examples from that week). As a diehard Pittsburgh Steelers fan myself, I also drew comparisons between my own love-hate relationship with my beloved Steelers and Hornby’s conflicted relationship with Arsenal. The students (and myself) were able to relate to the material on a personal level, making the online assignments much more meaningful when compared to, say, a didactic recounting of a week’s readings and videos.
In short, this fútbol course taught me a lot about the importance of sport in society and its unifying potential. Since the course ended, I have continued to read more on soccer in general (The Ball Is Round, Soccernomics, How Soccer Explains the World), and in South Africa (More Than Just a Game, Development and Dreams). I hope to incorporate football and other leisure practices into my research on the history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Furthermore, I intend to join the Football Scholars Forum at MSU, as well as watch many more matches throughout the year with friends and colleagues. “Culture of Soccer” taught me so much and contributed to my own development as a scholar and a fan. For me, the game has only just begun, and I am excited to see where it takes me.
*Liz Timbs is a PhD student in African history at Michigan State University. Her research interests are in the history of health and healing in South Africa, including the AIDS epidemic; the professionalization of medicine; masculinity studies; and comparative studies between South Africa and the United States. Follow her on Twitter: @tizlimbs
Categories
After the World Cup is Gone
By Sean Jacobs (@Africasacountry)
Do we need a book on the 2010 World Cup already? That’s the first question I asked Peter Alegi and Chris Bolsmann, editors of the brand new volume, Africa’s World Cup (University of Michigan Press, 2013). Their quick riposte: “Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu said that ‘anyone who wasn’t thrilled by the World Cup needs to see their psychiatrist.’ Since therapists cost too much, we wrote a book instead.” That’s a good enough reason, and Peter and Chris are uniquely qualified to edit the book. Peter teaches history at Michigan State University and has written two books about African football (here and here). He also runs a football blog and shoots videos of himself walking from his home to his office playing keepy uppy. Chris, a former club footballer in South Africa’s capital Pretoria, is a sociologist based in the UK. He has written a number of academic articles about football, including on the cultural significance of Mark Fish, one of a few white players to represent South Africa after Apartheid and who played for Lazio in Serie A (he’s one of a few South Africans who played in Serie A). As far as we know, this–three years later–is the first substantive attempt, whether popular or from scholars to make sense of what marketers also dubbed “Africa’s World Cup.” The book is especially relevant now given recent events in Brazil. What follows is a transcript of an email interview we did a few weeks back.
Is your book the first of its genre?
Africa’s World Cup is a valuable source for thinking more deeply about the matches, fan cultures, media coverage, cultural exhibits, and political and economic struggles related to the tournament. We, the editors, came to this project on the strength of fifteen years publishing scholarly books and journal articles on the history and sociology of South African and African football. We teach university courses about the subject and actively participate in the Football Scholars Forum (full disclosure: Sean is a member), an online fútbol think tank. Besides this professional expertise, we both share a lifelong passion for the game. We have played in ramshackle township grounds in South Africa, coached at the youth level, and attended countless matches across the country, from Athlone and Atteridgeville to Pietermaritzburg and Soweto. The World Cup coming to South Africa was hugely meaningful to both of us. It inspired us to bring together an international team of academics, journalists, writers, bloggers, players, coaches, museum curators, photographers, and architects to reflect on the experience and its aftermath.
Another distinctive quality of this book is its cross-over nature. It combines essayistic writing with scholarly analysis. Written in the first person, the two-dozen chapters are concise pieces that can be read in just about any order. This format and style should appeal to general readers and specialists alike. We like to think of it as a book that works well for university courses on Africa, sport, and globalization and also makes for good bedside reading. Africa’s World Cup is neither the first nor probably the last book of its kind. But it is the only book that does what it does.
The publicity suggest the book “reflect(s) on the … broader significance, meanings, complexities, and contradictions” of the 2010 World Cup? Can you say more about that?
The book is divided into four parts, arranged thematically. The essays in Part 1 consider the ways in which the 2010 World Cup refashioned urban spaces in host cities and the local struggles these changes engendered. Chapters on Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Durban by Daniel Herwitz, Marc Fletcher, David Roberts and Orli Bass. Killian Doherty note how and why the tournament accentuated processes of inclusion and exclusion in South African society. Airports were built or renovated; central business districts got facelifts; public transport improved; and broadband access widened. But it was mostly those of us who could afford to pay for expensive tickets that gained access to stadiums and FIFA “exclusion zones.” Many essays in the book point to this gentrification of the “people’s game” as evidence that while some racial mixing is taking place in contemporary South Africa, it is happening mainly in privatized and closely policed bourgeois spaces.
Part 2 shifts to how football, the World Cup, and South Africa were represented in popular art, music, media, and visual culture both locally and abroad. Jennifer Doyle’s essay juxtaposes Shakira’s plagiarism of the official World Cup song and Coca-Cola’s selective editing of K’naan’s song “Wavin’ Flag” with the Internet distribution of oppositional World Cup music. Solomon Waliaula explores the paradox of the vuvuzela—possibly the most enduring symbol of the tournament—as both leisure and noise. His essay makes some really interesting connections between centuries-old rites of passage in east Africa and today’s rituals of spectatorship in South Africa. Fiona Rankin-Smith looks at the aesthetics and visuals of football-related art in the Halakasha! exhibition she curated at a Johannesburg gallery during the World Cup. Finally, John Harpham records the sounds and conversations among patrons watching France’s World Cup matches at a café in Paris and, in the process, uses soccer to explore belonging and identity in contemporary France.
Part 3, the longest in the book, focuses on the complicated relationships between soccer and patriotism, nationalism, and pan-Africanism. The eight essays in this section chronicle the experiences of supporters of South Africa, Ghana, England, Uruguay, United States, Netherlands, and Mexico. These fans’ reflections provide a glimpse into processes of self-identification and allegiance and into the multiple meanings of the tournament. Individually and collectively, these essays do a terrific job of humanizing the World Cup corporate spectacle. A few examples: Chris Bolsmann writes about his dilemma on whether to sing the “Die Stem” portion of the South African national anthem due to its association with Afrikaner nationalism and apartheid. Traveling after the USA-England match, Andrew Guest is so revolted by the ignorance and jingoism of a fellow American supporter that when the latter tried to shake his hand at the end of the journey the author just turned and walked away. David Patrick Lane reveals the secret behind Uruguay’s surprising run to the semifinals. Apparently, it owed as much to Oscar Tabarez’s scientific coaching method and choosing Kimberley as a tranquilo base camp, as it did to the team’s devotion to candombe beats and garra Charrúa (Charruan claws, or fighting spirit). These are just some tasty morsels of what you can dig into in this part of the book.
Part 4 looks at the political discourses and economic rationales of World Cup hosting. Albert Grundlingh and John Nauright, well-known historians of South African sport, compare the broader impact of the 1995 Rugby World Cup and the 2010 soccer World Cup. Their main point is that neither event did much to address poverty, unemployment, or other critical socioeconomic questions facing postapartheid South Africa. Laurent Dubois acknowledges such limitations but encourages us to appreciate that the World Cup is the planet’s largest theater, an escapist narrative that plays out on iconic stages, with unpredictable outcomes, plot twists and turns, and unusual characters in the stands and on the pitch. Meg Vandermerwe questions World Cup discourse about pan-African solidarity in light of the xenophobic tensions in South Africa.
The book closes with a World Cup roundtable. As a South African, the World Cup made me very proud,” says Rodney Reiners, a former professional player and now head soccer writer at the Cape Argus. “Considering where this country has come from—once a pariah of the world, then the miracle of democratic change, and the enduring negativity of Afro-pessimism—we showed that “Africa can do world class.” According to Thabo Dladla, founder of the Izichwe Youth Football program in KwaZulu-Natal, there were also missed opportunities. “I had expected that long before the World Cup kicked off, concerted investments in terms of providing the facilities, providing equipment, providing the coaches for the kids would have occurred all over South Africa,” Dladla states. “This grassroots development would have been the biggest legacy of the World Cup. But we did not do that . . . The World Cup was successful, but too many young people in this country still have no hope, they have no future.”
What is the significance of the 2010 World Cup apart from the fact that it was the first World Cup played on African soil?
There are positive and negative aspects to the World Cup’s significance. On the positive side, most South Africans were quite pleased with the ways in which FIFA and global media congratulated South Africa for staging a world-class event. There was just about universal praise for South Africa’s warm hospitality, high modernist stadiums, tight security, sound event management, adequate accommodation, good transportation, and functional telecommunication networks. The World Cup added luster to “Brand South Africa” and fostered genuine patriotic unity for a short while. As Dladla puts it in the roundtable: “Maybe we need to have a World Cup every day in this country!”
On the negative side, the tournament highlighted the inequitable nature of FIFA’s hosting arrangement. The world body earned more than $3 billion in tax-free revenue, largely through the sale of television rights and corporate sponsorships, while South Africa spent more than twice that amount in public funds and made at most $100 million from ticket sales. World Cup economics privatized profits and socialized costs in other ways. South African shopping mall retailers, construction giants, and food and hospitality companies did well, but the overall impact on GDP in South Africa amounted to between 0.3 and 0.5 percent—roughly one-tenth of the original estimate. That most stadiums built or renovated for the World Cup now stand empty on most weekends is a sad and entirely predictable legacy. Even Local Organizing Committee CEO Danny Jordaan recognizes this fact: “Many of the expectations among South Africans were too high,” said Jordaan in a recent interview, referring to the viability of the marginal stadiums. “We did not think it through and engage all the stakeholders, large and small.” Finally, Parliament’s passed a special law (the 2010 FIFA World Cup Special Measures Acts 11 and 12 of 2006) which set a potentially dangerous precedent. These laws meant that for the duration of the tournament, South Africa surrendered its national sovereignty and suspended some constitutional rights in order to protect FIFA’s cash cow.
Whose legacy among football administrators was or were most advanced by the 2010 World Cup and why?
As a vocal advocate for South Africa’s World Cup, Sepp Blatter delivered on a campaign promise made to African FIFA delegates in the late 1990s: bringing the World Cup to Africa for the first time. 2010 cultivated a perception of Blatter as a “friend of Africa” which, among other things, he can use to deflect attention from FIFA bribery and corruption scandals. On the African side, the 2010 World Cup strengthened the position and status of Issa Hayatou, as we saw in his recent reelection as president of the Confederation of African Football (which he’s led since 1988). And then Irvin Khoza, Local Organizing Committee chair, probably solidified his grip on power in South African football and gained indispensable experience in managing a global megaevent.
If there’s a villain or villains in this piece, who gets to play that role(s)?
World Cup soccer is a complex phenomenon. The chapters in our book do not really identify heroes and villains. Rather than judge or assign blame, the essays draw on a rich set of sources and data, as well as personal experiences, to better understand the politics, economics, social, and sporting dimensions of the tournament. Having said that, some of the most important critiques raised in the book have to do with the nature and impact of financial and legal arrangements between FIFA and South Africa, as well as the development of public spaces and infrastructure in host cities for the benefit of foreign tourists and the local consumer class. World Cup sponsors and other corporate interests, local and international, are called to task for shaping fans’ experiences at South African stadiums and fan parks. The small number of black African fans and of African supporters from outside South Africa chipped away at the “Africanness” of the competition. Finally, the trend toward conservative, risk-averse football, Spain, Germany, and Mexico excepted, comes in for its fair share of criticism.
World Cups are intensely mediated and that’s how most people experienced them. Not just the live match, but the lead-up, the 24-hour banter, the news programs about construction of stadiums, etcetera. How would you characterize the coverage of the 2010 World Cup in global media, i.e. major Western media? Can you also comment on why do you think coverage swung from pre-tournament scare-mongering to post-tournament assessments like that of the International Herald Tribune: “South Africa’s triumph in being host to the World Cup can no longer be questioned”?
It was pretty amazing to see how in the end even conservative media in Britain and the United States went from skeptical or worse to triumphalist in their assessment of South Africa 2010. The day after the final the Times of London ran a story about how “The World Cup has been a triumph for South Africa.” The Wall Street Journal countered with its own version under the headline “Rejoice, the Beloved Country, toot your own vuvuzela.” The pendulum swung so wildly because the tournament went off with few glitches and, perhaps, because sports coverage tends to be emotional and even sensationalistic.
And in South African media? Did old South African divisions play out in the coverage?
While there is a reasonable diversity of opinions in South African media, government agendas and corporate interests decisively shaped media coverage of 2010. Between 2004 and 2008, there were occasions when the government was openly criticized, as seen in the debate over the construction of the Green Point Stadium in Cape Town. But by 2009, with the Confederations Cup approaching, private and public media turned actively boosterist. (Watch “Think Positive” ad by FNB.) It is also true that media coverage reflected South Africans’ passion for the game and genuine World Cup excitement. Even the Mail & Guardian weekly at times struggled to balance its “watchdog role” with riding the World Cup bandwagon.
After the final, self-congratulatory headlines and stories that filled South African television, radio, newspapers, and electronic media. South African big business enthusiastically joined the praise singers’ chorus, taking out full-page advertisements in the country’s major dailies: “Today this is the greatest country in the world,” declared First National Bank, an official World Cup sponsor; “South Africa: you can be proud,” stated the Pick ’n Pay supermarket chain. Within a few weeks of the World Cup’s conclusion, however, this united front faded away. Cricket and rugby returned to their dominant position in mainstream media while SABC failed to broadcast several Bafana Bafana matches.
Do we get a sense from the book how other Africans on the continent, outside South Africa, experienced the World Cup?
Simon Akindes, a former player on Benin’s national team, grapples with how his love for Arsenal and the absence of his motherland of Benin complicated which World Cup side he chose to support. Together with his U.S.-born son, Akindes eventually decided to cheer for teams emphasizing an attractive style of play over soulless efficiency. Dutch journalist Niels Posthumus and Austrian photographer Anna Mayumi Kerber embarked on an overland trip from Europe to South Africa in which they travelled through a number of African countries in the lead-up to the World Cup finals. In their description of the countries they visited we get a sense of what the World Cup meant to Africans outside of South Africa on the continent.
Football in South Africa is seen as a black sport which it is to a large extent (in the country’s media or at matches), despite a long and deep history of football among some white South Africans. Why is that so? Did the 2010 World Cup change that and, if so, in what ways?
Since the end of World War Two, large crowds of black and white South Africans watched and enjoyed football in rival leagues. The amateur South African Soccer Federation in the 1950s and the semi-professional South African Soccer League in the 1960s were at the forefront of nonracial football in apartheid South Africa. But what is also interesting, and often overlooked, is that between the mid-1950s and mid-1970s football matched rugby as the most popular spectator sport among white South Africans. The National Party tinkered with the rougher edges of apartheid sport in the 1970s. First, the regime permitted tournaments where racially defined teams competed against each other in stadiums with segregated seating. Then, after Soweto ’76, racially mixed football was allowed at elite club level. As a result of these shifts, the whites-only National Football League collapsed, clubs fielded mixed teams, and segregation at stadiums ended. Many professional white teams returned to whites-only amateur football leagues, which were still shielded by apartheid laws. White fans deserted integrated football and increasingly turned their attention to rugby, which became professional in the early 1990s. The 1995 Rugby World Cup victory added to the passion and excitement many white South African developed for that sport. As several contributors to our book point out, the 2010 FIFA World Cup attracted significant numbers of white South Africans. The possibility of seeing world-class players and teams competing in newly built stadiums was an opportunity not to be missed. But in the long term, unfortunately, the World Cup did not change the racial divisions in South African football.
What for you were–or your contributors–the most defining moment off the pitch of the 2010 World Cup?
An interesting aspect of the book is how each contributor identifies a different defining moment. But many authors reflect on the experiences of walking in and around South African stadiums and city centers for the first time; using public transport to get to matches; and interacting openly with scores of international visitors and South Africans.
And on the pitch?
Siphiwe Tshabalala’s goal for South Africa against Mexico in the opening game at Soccer City represents a poignant moment for South Africans. For a dozen minutes it seemed like the “Madiba Magic” era of the mid-1990s had returned. Another extraordinary moment was Luis Suarez’s handball in the dying moments of extra time in the quarterfinal between Ghana and Uruguay. Suarez’s “save” and Asamoah Gyan’s subsequent penalty miss essentially prevented the Black Stars from becoming the first African side to reach a World Cup semifinal. (Ghana went on to lose the penalty shoot-out). The Final was no World Cup classic, but most observers seemed pleased that Spain’s “tiki-taka” style had overcome the physical brutality of the Dutch team to lift the trophy at Soccer City.
The World Cup was a marketer’s dream. Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Brand South Africa with its “Diski” ads, among others, latched onto the tournament. What do you think were the most striking campaigns of the tournament?
Within South Africa, a number of large corporations latched onto the success of the World Cup by placing full-page color advertisements in national newspapers at the end of the tournament. Banks and grocery chains were quick to congratulate South Africa on hosting a ‘World Class event’. The most successful campaign was “Football Friday.” It began as a corporate initiative by the Southern Sun hotel group, which encouraged its employees to wear football shirts on Fridays. It was later adopted by the Local Organizing Committee and government agencies and departments. This initiative generated huge enthusiasm for the World Cup around the country. Another striking marketing strategy was MTN’s “Ayoba” campaign. This neologism (loosely translated as “cool”) quickly entered into South Africans’ and foreigners’ World Cup lexicon.
The 2010 World Cup was billed as “Africa’s World Cup” by the local organizers and FIFA. How close to that description did the tournament come?
The World Cup was held in South Africa; six African teams competed; and thousands of Africans attended matches. The opening and closing ceremonies were symbolically laden with African images, new and old. However, the book demonstrates that the tournament was first and foremost a slickly run corporate operation overseen by FIFA, albeit with the vital assistance of the host nation’s government and the local organizing committee. In this respect, South Africa was part of a broader global trend that has seen nations from outside the West host global mega sporting events. Beijing staged the 2008 Summer Olympics and Delhi the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Brazil is hosting the 2014 World Cup as well as the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro. Russia is due to host the 2014 Winter Games (in seaside Sochi!) and the 2018 World Cup. Placed in this wider context, the personal experiences and social analysis presented in this book should resonate beyond South Africa 2010.
One of the contributors Davy Lane writes about Uruguay’s World Cup experience. Can you give us a sense of how he deals with the Luis Suarez’s gamesmanship against Ghana and the reaction to it?
Davy Lane refers to the Uruguayan team as underdogs that “became the stray of the tournament, ugly, unloved, and unwanted.” When Suárez pulled off the most important “save” of the 2010 World Cup, Lane writes, he showed us something about sacrifice: he “epitomized selflessness, surrendering himself for his team.” In that dramatic game’s aftermath, Uruguay came in for much abuse, but this was not unanimous. As Lane reminds us, many took into account that Ghana squandered a golden opportunity to win the game through Gyan’s missed penalty.
South Africa recently hosted the 2013 African Cup of Nations. Could we detect any of 2010 legacies in the running of the tournament?
The 2013 African Nations Cup was an understated yet well-managed event. The South African government spent millions, rather than billions, on hosting the Nations Cup. Unlike 2010, one could have been in the country and not noticed that the continental showcase was even taking place. Most matches saw large sections of the stadiums empty despite relatively cheap tickets. The quality of the playing surface at Mbombela and Soccer City, renamed the National Stadium for the occasion, was abysmal. The Mbombela pitch looked like a sand pit, while parts of Soccer City’s barren pitch was spray painted green. On the plus side, local vendors were not severely restricted from trading in “FIFA exclusion zones,” but instead did fairly brisk business around the Nations Cup venues.
One final comment about the legacy of 2010 and South Africa’s enthusiastic hosting of international sporting events. In the book’s conclusion Mohlomi Maubane puts it this way: “the World Cup was dangled as a carrot to the poor, as a beacon of hope and the answer to their material hardships. Now that the tournament has come and gone, it is clear that millions of people still struggle to make ends meet. What is the ruling class now going to dangle? The 2020 bid for the Olympics in Durban?”
*This article is cross-posted between FICH and the popular Africa is A Country blog.