ONE WORLD CUP: TWO WORLDS, by Mervyn Abrahams

Two days before the first-ever African FIFA Soccer World Cup many South Africans are gripped with a ‘feel good’ factor and excitement. Flags on cars are visible everywhere, people in the city-centers are wearing regalia in support of their soccer teams, and there are almost non-stop radio chat shows on the merits of one team versus another. South Africa is a soccer-mad country and hosting the most spectacular global soccer event has raised the excitement even more. For a country emerging from racial segregation and the brutality of apartheid, sports create a window of opportunity for nation-building because it could be used as a unifying force.
Will the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa be a unifying moment in the history of our nation and advance our socio-economic development by contributing to lessening the inequality between rich and poor? Voices from movements of the poor seem to paint a very different picture of the impact of the World Cup on their lives. From their perspective the World Cup will not benefit the poor and the disadvantaged. On the contrary, given developments on the ground, the opposite is more likely to happen. Second, the expenditure of billions of Rands on the 'elitist' World Cup constitutes a misdirection of resources needed to meet a wide range of pressing social needs.
They point out that South Africa has invested heavily in preparing for the World Cup. It is estimated that US$4.5 billion of public funds were invested in World Cup related infrastructure. At the time of bidding for the World Cup it was suggested that this investment would 'trickle down' through job creation and development. Yet of the 22,000 Cup-related jobs made available to citizens, 70-80 percent are subcontracted positions, offering wage rates of US$1-2 per hour, while construction companies reported pre-tax profit of 54–142 per cent. Thus, the World Cup will not benefit workers or the poor but rather big business.
Instead, FIFA has been granted a ‘tax-free bubble’ when its activities have been categorized as 'diplomatic' via the Revenues Law Amendment Act 20 of 2006, guaranteeing Fifa 17 provisions underpinning 'supportive financial environment', as well as free services ranging from safety and security, healthcare, transport, communications, intellectual property and marketing, control-zones for specific kilometers, amounting to as yet unknown costs.
Perhaps the best example of the manner in which the poor are being sidelined are the situation confronting street traders, those who sell small products on the side of the roads as a means to make a living. These traders are being forcibly removed from areas where they have been trading for years in the build-up and for the duration of the World Cup. This is to comply with FIFA’s designated exclusion zones. Rather than helping these traders the World Cup has become a means to restrict their ability to make a living. The same fate has been meted out to street children, sex workers and other beings considered undesirable in the quest to appease FIFA and to present South Africa’s cities as ‘world-class cities’.
Shack dwellers organisations like Abahlali have warned of increases in evictions from their homes and the South African Police Service (SAPS) has issued a directive to a number of municipalities not to allow marches for the duration of the 2010 World Cup, effectively suspending people’s constitutional right to protest.
So, what can we expect from the World Cup, hosted on African soil for the first time? Those who find themselves on the margins of society agree that the World Cup will in all probably address Afro-pessimism, on the side of First World tourists and media, and create a feel-good factor for South Africans and not much else. The real beneficiaries will be FIFA, big business and the political elite and the inequality between rich and poor in South Africa will remain constant, at best, or increase.
It seems we will remain a soccer-crazy people but mega-events like the World Cup create more difficulties for those who are poor. This is not confined to World Cup 2010 or South Africa but experience elsewhere in the world paints the same picture. Thus, the question remains – how can we use mega-events like the World Cup to improve the living conditions of the poor?