SABC’s World Cup talent search embarrassing - 09/03/2010
Therese Owen, Tonight: Twenty 10, schmenty 10. Everyone in the South African music industry thought the World Cup would elevate them to supreme rock stars of the entire universe. Well, here’s some news - you have more chance of releasing your video on YouTube and getting a million hits a la Die Antwoord. The reason? Well, in case you haven’t noticed, the World Cup is not about South Africa. Fifa is just renting our country.
The Herald: Believe it or not we are hosting the 2010 World Cup and no less than eight games will be played in the city. The city will be full of buzz and excitement.
If you walk around the city there is little to convince that we are hosting the biggest tournament in the world. I ask myself: where is the vibe, excitement and billboard that says ’The NMB welcomes you with a smile to the 2010 World Cup matches’?
We are missing out on an opportunity to market our city as a city of choice and the place to be.
Cheryl Roberts and Nadia Sanger, Cape Argus: It may be a bit late to raise this issue with South Africa fewer than 100 days from the 2010 World Cup kick-off. Nevertheless, it must be put on record that it has not gone unnoticed that everything to do with this global sporting event has been in the interests of men. This includes the consolidation of male power, business opportunities, and putting men in the driving seat as those able to perform, achieve and deliver. Taking into account that the historic hosting of the first World Cup on African soil needs the support of our nation, particularly amid much anti-African sentiment and doubt among Europeans, it does not mean one should overlook the negative implications of such a global event. Of interest here is how 2010, in many ways, reinforces sexist thinking and gender inequalities - how masculine and feminine identities are articulated.
Relax, Jerome - they’re just doing their jobs - 28/02/2010
Carlos Amato, Sunday Times: FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke usually savours the limelight. Remember that echoing, stereophonic smooch he planted on Charlize Theron’s cheek at the World Cup draw? But this week Valcke wasn’t enjoying himself so much. Power has pitfalls - and one of them is having to deal with a strange, howling monster called the press.
Football News: Playing for England, wearing the three lions on your shirt in the World Cup Finals, from the muddy Sunday pub pitches to the icy school playgrounds of England, everyone wants a ticket to South Africa. Wayne Bridge has torn up that ticket. Sportsmail accepts that Bridge has had a tough time recently in his personal life, but he is an experienced professional footballer. One not blessed with dazzling, box-office skills, but who is fortunate to kick with his left foot. He is an average player, but has won 36 caps because he plays in a specialist position with limited alternatives. The shame in the lurid John Terry episode is not his. Sorry, I’m not available: Wayne Bridge asked not to be picked for England because John Terry failed to show any remorse over affair So why not turn up, play the game of his life against Egypt and book his seat for South Africa in June? Leave the squirming to Terry.
Michael Goldman, BizCommunity: Much of the media furore that has focused on the belief that any restaurant, pub or hotel planning to show any 2010 World Cup games will have to apply for a pricey special license, donate 2% of turnover to liquor authorities and submit a comprehensive security plan is another unfortunate example of misunderstanding the specific FIFA guidelines. The original wording of the Department of Trade & Industry’s draft 2010 World Cup Liquor Policy did give some cause for concern. Minister Davies’ draft refers to ’all FIFA Stadiums, FIFA Fan Parks and Public viewing areas’ and did not make a clear distinction between what FIFA terms as commercial and non-commercial public viewing events.
Mary Ann Anderson, Sacramento Bee: Hunkering down against the wind-whipped, cloud-shrouded summit of Table Mountain, my first thought was that the bottom of Africa is pretty much the top. The 360-degree vista of Cape Town was striking against a sky painted a rich lapis lazuli, and from the pinnacle of the mountain the city quite literarily seems to unfold all the way to the ends of the earth. The closest land mass to it other than Africa is Antarctica. If you’ve managed to ’score’ tickets for the 2010 World Cup, here’s our must-do list of places to see and things to do while you’re in the city. ’Fly with South African airways, Visit the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, Experience Robben Island, Go to the top of the Table Mountain, Take in a roots Africa tour, Take in the architecture of Bo-Kaap, Experience a Cape Town walking tour, Go through Kirstenbosch, ramble through the Cape Winelands’.
Can South Africa defeat brand pessimists 16/02/2010
Dr Nikolaus Eberl, Bizcommunity: As international tour operators report 25-year low bookings of FIFA World Cup travel packages and local organisers fear profiteering could deter more soccer fans than alarmist reporting about violent crime, is there any way that 2010 tourism can be salvaged with just over 100 days to go? In other words, what can be done to reverse the negative effect of word of mouth and convert international audiences from brand pessimists to brand enthusiasts for Destination South Africa?
The agony of World Cup ticket rejection - 14/02/2010
Ben Trovato, Sunday Times: I am going to miss the World Cup. How dare Fifa do this to me? Is it because I’m white? I am an African. Actually, I’m not. I am white. But for the purposes of the World Cup, I am an African. How did they decide that my application was unsuccessful? And who made the decision - a cabal of nouveau-riche Eurotrash bean-counters sprawled in luxury hotel rooms with their loathsome snouts buried in piles of Peruvian coke?
Closet Brit Oliver Roberts hopes the worst of the English and their stab-proof vests will just stay at home in 2010: Whenever I tell people I have a British passport, they’re always jealous. But I’ve been at odds with this birthright for some time. It started when I visited England in 1999 and encountered a population comprised largely of beery men and women with floppy breasts who used the word ’brilliant’ to describe anything that’s mildly satisfactory. There were also filthy yobs and pregnant teens scratching swearwords onto train windows and lots of depressed-looking people in suits.
Has troubled Benni McCarthy jumped from the frying pan into the fire by leaving English Premier League club Blackburn Rovers and joining West Ham in his bid to enhance Bafana Bafana selection for the 2010 World Cup? One might not have thought so when the still somewhat portly McCarthy recently expounded the view that leaving Blackburn, where he had recently only enjoyed a minimal amount of first-team duty, was not disimilar to being released from a straight-jacket.
Sadiq Abdullateef, Daily Triumph: Some few weeks ago, prior to the start of the African Nations Cup, I said Coach Amodu Shuaibu was the most under-pressure Coach of all the nations that have qualified for the World Cup in South Africa. Even at that, I didn’t expect him to be sacked after leading Nigeria to Third Place on the continent, so I was surprised on Friday when news of his sack by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) filter through the media around the globe. Whoever made that decision needs to think twice. There have been calls to sack the former Super Eagles Coach even before the Nations Cup started, which I think is very unfair, rude and inconsiderate to Amodu Shuaibu. It is the second time the former BCC Lions coach is fired from his seat ahead of the World Cup after qualifying Nigeria to the competition.
Gavin Chait, Cape Argus: Owning a huge piece of land must sound like a wonderful way to get rich. Think of the opportunities for mineral exploration, agriculture or of building homes or factories on it. However, all these things exist only in your imagination. All you have is a piece of land. If minerals are to be extracted engineers must first sink exploratory shafts and investigate the potential available beneath the earth. Maybe they find nothing. Maybe that’s too expensive. The same goes if you want to build anything. The land must be surveyed and then linked to services like water, sanitation, telecommunications and electricity. Perhaps that’s too expensive for you too. So, what exactly is going to happen for the South African economy after the 2010 World Cup in only a few months’ time? We’ll have a big event, lots of people will come and have a grand time, and then they will go home.
Lies will not stop SA’s 2010 steam train 09/02/2010
Thomas Kwenaite, SuperSport: A report in Britain indicated that vulnerable children as young as 10 years old are sexually exploited by paedophiles. Last year alone, more than 1 000 toddlers were sexually exploited in 20 of the 209 local authorities in London and a group monitoring the situation expressed concern that more children could be at risk. Last week, I watched in disbelief as some prejudiced British journalist with his Cockney accent offered his expertise on Al Jazeera as to the reason why more than a million tickets for the 2010 World Cup are still available four months before South Africa gets the contest underway against Mexico. In his jaundiced view, he claims crime in South Africa is the underlying factor and the prime reason why the Pommies are not buying enough tickets for the 2010 World Cup and will not be coming to a terrifyingly crime infested country like South Africa.
Ben Trovato, Sunday Times: Fleet Street’s horror stories may well deter Henry Sprong and his snaggletoothed wife Agnes from coming over for the footie, but this is a good thing. We don’t want their type here. This is the soccer World Cup, for God’s sake, not a badminton tournament. We want people who will visit South Africa precisely because danger lurks around every corner. We want their hooligans. Every speed-snorting, beer-quaffing, gay-bashing, dart-throwing, glottal-stopping one of them. There is nothing quite like an English soccer hooligan and he will make a worthy opponent for our muggers, hijackers, con artists and other assorted members of the local banditry.
Kevin McCullum, The Star: If you’ve been too distracted by the thought of our president doing to the Iron Duke’s daughter what Safa have been doing to South African football fans for years, then here’s a reminder of what must rank as the most heartless move in football since Thierry Henry handled the ball against Ireland: Caf have banned Togo for two years and fined $50 000 for pulling out of the African Cup of Nations after an attack by a terrorist group in which lives were lost.
Why WC doubters should spur SA to glory 02/02/2010
Lucas Ntyintyane: Business Day: What is the best way to respond to your critics? Do you sulk and sit in the corner? Is being nasty the answer? Or do you listen with one ear while getting on with the job at hand. What will it be, SA? The doomsayers are at the door. The closer the 2010 World Cup comes, the louder grow the negative voices. What is our answer to the assertion that holding the World Cup in SA is a mistake? We have heard it before: ’SA is against the ropes.’ This song is losing its flavour. Yes, we stumble, but we won’t fall. It is like dι jΰ vu. We love being the underdogs. Does it smell sweeter to prove your critics wrong? It seems to be the story of our lives.
Nikolaus Eberl, Bizcommunity.com: With just over 100 days to go to the kickoff of the world’s biggest media event, global eyeballs are likely to be trained onto the battlefield of brands before they switch to the football pitch. Having invested up to US$100m for the privilege of associating their brand with the FIFA World Cup, what returns can sponsors expect and what are the benchmarks for winning the world cup of branding in 2010? Research conducted on the Return on Sponsoring Investment (RoSI) of the 2006 FIFA World Cup sponsors yielded an intriguing scoreboard. In the turnover category, Adidas took the honours by far, scoring a 150% increase in sales of the official tournament ball (15 million sold during the tournament vs 6 million in 2002), and an astonishing 600% increase in national jerseys purchased (1.5 million vs 250 000 in 2002).
Verashini Pillay, Mail & Guardian: If I was a mascot I know who I’d want to be: Zakumi, the green-haired leopard for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. I’d get to proclaim being ’proudly South African’ from the rooftops while coining it in China. Of course, Zakumi has learned from the best. When he first burst into painfully multicoloured existence in September 2008, we knew Zaks was special because Danny Jordaan told us he was born in the magical time of 1994. You know, the year of the Iraq disarmament crisis, the Rwandan genocide and SA’s first democratic elections. But mostly because of the democracy thing. This naturally made him, a ’proud South African’, with no other qualifications necessary, thank you very much.
Jonty Mark, The Star: Can an African team win the 2010 World Cup on the shores of their home continent? It’s a question that’s been posed plenty of times since South Africa won the right to host the World Cup way back in 2004. And I believe that watching the 2010 African Nations Cup in Angola in the past few weeks has brought me closer to a conclusion. Unfortunately, that conclusion is a total, unhesitant, palpable ’NOT A CHANCE!’ The performance of Africa’s five World Cup qualifiers at the Nations Cup (South Africa, of course, did not make it to Angola) have, in fact, left me with little confidence that an African side can even make it as far as the last 16 of South Africa 2010.
Bareng-Batho Kortjaas, The Times: The prospect of Africa breaking through its quarterfinal ceiling at the 2010 World Cup looks gloomy, given the showing by most of the South Africa-bound contingent at the Africa Cup of Nations in Angola. In fact, the tournament proved that the tag of ’favourites’ should be consigned to the dustbin. Consider the misery that befell Ivory Coast. They arrived in Angola favoured by many to add to their 1992 crown. More significantly, Didier Drogba and Co were tipped as the team with the manpower best able to surpass the quarterfinal achievements of Cameroon and Senegal at the 1990 and 2002 World Cups.
Probe into price-fixing allegations welcomed - 29/01/2010
The Times Editorial: The fact that airline fees are to rise steeply over the World Cup may represent a poor, short-term approach to business, but it is no crime.
After all, when demand outstrips supply, it is only natural for the price to go up.
But it would be a crime if the airlines colluded in some way to raise prices in unison, undermining the market and robbing the public of the choice of lower-priced alternatives. This appears to be what the Competition Commission suspects has occurred in the South African airline industry ahead of the World Cup. The body is now mounting a formal investigation into uncompetitive practices in the industry - an inquiry which many South Africans will welcome.
David Carte, Moneyweb: Soccer worldwide is the game of the working class but, thanks to rampant greed, the 2010 World Cup being staged in SA in June will be affordable only to wealthy foreigners. Don’t be surprised if fewer than the hoped-for 500 000 tourists arrive in June. The greed is by no means only South African. It starts with airlines eager to make good on their multi-billion dollar losses of the past two years, includes SA hotels and B&Bs and extends to FIFA itself, which is charging up to $900 (R6 849) a ticket for the final. Airlines and hotels have doubled and trebled their normal prices.
Alec Hogg, Moneyweb: Bafana Bafana legend and FIFA World Cup Ambassador Mark Fish needed to borrow my SA scarf ahead of the photo opportunity. With dozens of other things to think about, that small detail seemed to have been overlooked by the organisers. Otherwise, South Africa’s first ever hosting of the WEF’s opening media conference went smoothly. Even the media’s questions seemed to support the adventure which SA President Jacob Zuma called ’an African Legacy - in future we’ll be talking in ordinary conversation about before 2010 and after’. Zuma deftly handled the only semi-threatening question about security concerns during the World Cup by reminding the audience that Angola (where a terrorism attack on the Tongolese soccer team shook the sporting world) is a four-hour flight from where FIFA’s premier event is being staged.
Nkareng Matshe, The Star: South Africans should be thankful that Carlos Parreira is such a realist. Whereas others have sought to elevate Saturday’s emphatic victory over Swaziland to no more than an inconsequence that it was, the Bafana Bafana coach remained level-headed amid the commotion which followed at Chatsworth. Sure, six goals from the national team should draw celebrations but singing Shosholoza and dancing on the stadium chairs was way overboard from the 10 000 fans who were not charged a cent at the Durban venue. The senselessness did not end there, however. Some could be heard screaming: ’Bring on the World Cup!’ Others misguidedly claimed this was South Africa’s ’biggest victory’ in international football.
Neal Collins, The Star: At last, Steven Pienaar is offering a glimmer of on-field optimism for Bafana Bafana. Yes, South Africa may be gearing up nicely for the 2010 World Cup in June off the field. I’ve been to Moses Mabhida stadium in Durban, Green Point in Cape Town, and Soccer City in Soweto - and they’re doing a great job. But it’s on the field where pessimism strikes at the heart of the Rainbow Nation’s population, whether they follow local football or not. Invariably not. But my question for those doubters is this: ’How can any side fail to compete at the top level with Steven Pienaar at the heart of things?’ The bloke is a revelation.
Issa’s fiefdom strangling the African game - 16/01/2010
Bareng-Batho Kortjaas, Sunday Times: Nelson Mandela achieved more in 27 years in jail than Issa Hayatou has in 23 years as a free man in charge of the Confederation of African Football There is no exaggeration in my assertion that Caf desperately needs an infusion of new blood. It needs new people with new ideas and a new vision to give birth to a new organisation. It needs new people who can set Caf free from the constraints of being an Hayatou fiefdom and convert it to a body conversant with modern ways of doing things. Watching him perched on a chair fit for a king as president Jose Eduardo dos Santos declared the 27th Africa Cup of Nations open, Hayatou looked tired.
Sonja Raasch, The Dispatch: Chief Executive Officer of the World Cup organising committee in South Africa, Danny Jordaan, is a worried man. His concern does not arise from a lack of preparedness or any other ailment which might negatively affect the World Cup on home soil, but a rather unusual malady a lack of loyalty to the home team by South African soccer aficionados. On Wednesday, Business Day reported that Jordaan had confirmed that thousands of tickets to Bafana Bafana matches at the 2010 World Cup remain unsold and that South Africa faced the rather embarrassing situation of becoming the first hosts to be outnumbered by foreign sides’ fans when the tournament starts on June 11.
World Cup panic exposes Western prejudice - 15/01/2010
Rams Mabote, The Sowetan: What was the world thinking behind granting South Africa the rights and opportunity to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup, the biggest sporting event on the planet? Let’s face it, this country has given the world every imaginable reason why we do not deserve it. How can the world rest and be still when the country entrusted with the World Cup is crumbling before everyone’s eyes? How can the world stand by when we are clearly incapable of guaranteeing a safe World Cup?
Stop bleating Jordaan, you made the rules - 14/01/2010
Arthur Goldstuck: Its not a pretty sound. The Local Organising Committee for World Cup 2010 whining about the slow pace of ticket sales is a little like football teams complaining that they dont get enough credit for their attractive style of football, even as they are being relegated to a lower league. The reality is that Fifa, in consultation with the Local Organising Committee (LOC), set the rules and procedures for local ticket allocation. For Danny Jordaan to complain that England will have more supporters at their games than Bafana Bafana is disingenuous in the extreme.
It will be tragic is this trend continues, he said. Yes, indeed. Its tragic that Jordaan and his colleagues have allowed this trend to emerge in the first place.
