World Cup

Andrew Layman:  PCB CEO

Day by day the country is being swept up in an increasing tide of euphoria related to the imminent FIFA World Cup.   For sports enthusiasts, and particularly those who are devoted to soccer, this is a wonderful prospect.    Many could only ever dream of actually watching a World Cup soccer match, and now they have the chance right here.  It is awesome, to use a contemporary adjective.

Whether this euphoria should be mistaken for patriotism is a question I have addressed before.   The reality is that, for all its immensity and extensive reach across the globe, this is a sports tournament.   FIFA is a sports body formed to co-ordinate football internationally.   The fact that it, and its counterparts in other codes, has become a ‘controlling’ body, it must not be forgotten, is attributable to the permission of the federal affiliates that have allowed this to happen.   The journey from ‘co-ordination’ to ‘control’ is a short one when vast amounts of money are available and empires are consequently founded.    Entrenched leadership is inclined to become the norm even though, considering the intended nature of a sports’ organisation, regular changes in leadership would seem to be wiser.    Such has the empire of FIFA developed that it resembles a sovereign state whose emperor should occupy the finest five-star hotel suite in the country, be afforded unquestioned obeisance and have his own dedicated traffic lane to and from matches.

Accompanying the wave of enthusiasm is a growing realisation that our country has been taken in by the lure of World Cup glory.    Many are beginning to question some of the deals made in order to secure the bid.   At least one international investigative journalist, who has been researching FIFA for years, asserts that millions have been spent on securing votes and deals to the FIFA advantage.     If the media is to be believed, our administrators, or some of them, at least, are to receive their pay-offs too, but this is only likely to emerge when the festival is over.   In the meantime, the country has committed itself to enormous expense.   The investment in infrastructure should not be begrudged, at least for as long as it contributes value to the country’s economic and social welfare.   The World Cup has spurred us into investment that is overdue and might not have been made had it not been for the demands of the soccer fiesta.   This is a positive – much of the investment will not go to waste and will prompt the country to ‘grow into it’.    Only later, perhaps, will we learn of other costs that might not be quite so justifiable.

The current euphoria also tends to obscure the disappointment of the business sector, both formal and informal, that the promised pot of gold at the end of the World Cup rainbow is a mirage.    We were promised innumerable commercial opportunities, but only a few will really benefit.  Even the hospitality sector is now facing the reality that there will be fewer visitors, by a significant number, than expected.    Guest houses, hotels and airlines that had signed restrictive contracts with MATCH, the company mandated by FIFA to manage hospitality packages (and in which Blatter’s nephew is reputed to have a share), have had tickets and rooms returned unsold.    It is now too late to hope that they will be able to secure any bookings.   When bed and breakfasts in Maritzburg refused to sign with MATCH, which wished to set the tariff, they were viewed with some suspicion as not entering the correct spirit of the event.  

Hoteliers in Durban are up in arms.  They have been blamed for inflating their prices and putting visitors off.   However, MATCH has a schedule of tariffs for its hospitality packages and this suggests exactly where the inflation has arisen.   The charge for domestic air flights is the dollar equivalent of R5 934.   This is six to ten times more than a flight on a low-cost carrier (which explains, perhaps, why FIFA objected to Kulula’s advert).   The MATCH price of a three-star hotel room in Gauteng is from R1 737 to R1 965 while transfer to and from the ground will cost R440.   In Durban, a five-star room will cost up to R10 241.   If this information does not explain, to some degree at least, the poor international response, the ticketing system certainly confirms that it was unwise to transpose Germany’s protocols into Africa. 

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