In the working-class neighbourhoods around Ellis Park stadium, on every match day, there is an odd parade: The rich strolling past the poor.
The residents of Millbourne Road sit quietly on their stoops, watching the parade of soccer fans, occasionally blowing a lonely vuvuzela or shouting a brief chorus of “Ole, ole.” Some try to sell cheap snacks to the World Cup visitors, or pose for photos for the tourists. But in the main, they are on the sidelines of this glitzy global event.
Anyone who has glanced at a stadium crowd at this World Cup knows the unspoken story: the overwhelming majority of the ticket-holding fans are affluent foreigners or affluent South Africans – especially whites and those of Asian descent. Only a small percentage are representative of the country as a whole.
And that’s one of the main complaints emerging in South Africa today. The critics say that this is an elite event, for wealthy athletes and affluent spectators, at a cost of $5-billion in government funds, and it provides little direct benefit to the largely impoverished people of this country.
Of course there are psychological benefits – nobody doubts that anymore. The good vibes of the World Cup, with its drama and excitement and patriotism, have helped to unify South Africa, temporarily at least. Even after the elimination of South Africa’s national soccer team last month, millions of fans threw their support to the last surviving African team, Ghana, allowing the high-spirited mood to continue for another week.
Children play with a soccer ball along a dirt road in Telmas, South Africa, on Sun., July 4.— Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images
Across the country, there is a feeling of pride that the World Cup has been largely successful. The skeptics were proven wrong. Crime and violence have been minimal, the stadiums have been lauded, the crowds have been happy, the foreign visitors are impressed, the logistical challenges have been overcome and the nation is basking in global praise.
But is it worth $5-billion to produce a mood of national well-being? That’s the question the critics are asking. When the World Cup ends Sunday, the euphoria will soon fade, but South Africa’s harsh problems will remain: poverty; unemployment; poor housing; unofficial segregation and deep inequality. Millions of South Africans live in tin shacks without electricity or running water – and without hope of seeing the inside of the World Cup stadiums.
The government says the World Cup will add nearly $5-billion to the national economy this year, mostly through tourism and construction stimulus. It also estimates that the World Cup will create 130,000 jobs. Most of those jobs, however, are temporary. And the stadium and infrastructure costs have soared since the early estimates in 2004 when South Africa won the rights to the World Cup.
The gleaming new venues will be little use to the country when the World Cup is over. The national soccer league cannot fill the stadiums, and the rugby leagues don’t want them. Most of the stadiums will be white elephants, sitting empty for the majority of the year, with millions of dollars in annual maintenance costs.
Amid the tsunami of World Cup hype that has swept over South Africa in the past few weeks there are people like Marcus Solomon who are voices of dissent.
One might expect Mr. Solomon to have been ecstatic when the world’s biggest sporting event arrived in South Africa. After all, he has devoted much of his life to sports. As a political prisoner with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island for a decade, he was a leader of the famed Makana Football Association, which fought apartheid through soccer and produced many of today’s South African leaders. After his release from prison, he campaigned for sports facilities for children across the country.
