Feeding Frenzy:

The World Cup is almost her and it will be big news, especially for African sport. Journalists will converge on South Africa from all over the world. The Organising Committee of South Africa’s World Cup knows that it must ensure that world-class facilities are provided, so stories can be dispatched rapidly to all parts of the globe, but they know what to expect. Their CEO, Dr Danny Jordaan, has observed several World Cup Finals, biding his time and making mental notes to stand his country in good stead when their time came.

France, Japan/South Korea and Germany provided invaluable material for the preparations, so how many journalists must they cater for? “I don’t really know,” Jordaan told us before adding an important proviso. “The World Cup in Germany had about 18,500.”

There will be even more interest in South Africa’s World Cup than usual as it is the first to take place in Africa – eighty years after Jules Rimet’s dream came true for the first time in Uruguay. Although the figure probably includes rights holders, it suggests that every possible angle that the World Cup could throw up will be covered. Well not quite.

Same Old Story:

Accreditation procedures were a mess in Ghana for the African Cup of Nations in 2008 and nothing changed for the 2010 tournament. We applied in plenty of time for the tournament in Angola, but the Confédération Africaine de Football’s website had a permanent glitch that refused to allow the application form to be submitted, so we contacted their Head of Communications, Suleiman Habuba.

He eventually granted accreditation, but failed to respond to repeated requests to transfer it to our top African football correspondent who was part of Carlos Queiroz’ Bafana Bafana set up, Aboobaker (Boebie) Williams. This resulted in a journalist who knew more than most about football, especially African football, missing the African Cup of Nations even though it was virtually on his doorstep. And now it is happening again, this time in his country for the World Cup.

Ludicrous Procedures:

FIFA demands that existing media must apply for accreditation for all correspondents in the country that the magazine, newspaper, or whatever is based. Even correspondents that live and work in other countries have to apply to the football association or federation of the country that the media is registered in. This can and has resulted in serious problems.

All of our correspondents that applied for accreditation had to do so through the FA, which claimed that FIFA had only allocated them accreditation for a hundred journalists. They gave these to mainstream media, which is understandable, but these procedures have had an unforeseen side-effect. Bayo Olodan – our Nigerian correspondent, who would have followed the Super-Eagles – cannot go to Africa’s World Cup because he works for us. Franklin Anane Gyimah would have covered the Black Stars – he lives and works in Ghana. He cannot go because he works for us. They don’t and would not have been following England.

Had they worked as freelances they could have applied directly to FIFA and stood a chance of being accredited. This is bad enough, but the plight of Boebie Williams simply beggars belief. He was part of South Africa’s coaching set-up after the fall of apartheid under Carlos Queiroz. He has also coached Ajax Capetown. He is a member of the National Union of Journalists and our South African correspondent, having contributed several insightful stories on African football.

Williams wanted to follow the Bafana Bafana – a team that he had a special interest in, having been part of the development of the national team since the long-overdue demise of apartheid. He could have provided greater insight than many who have been accredited, combining his journalistic skills with extensive knowledge of football, especially African football. He was forced to apply to the FA in England, which limited itself to journalists following England.

This is not entirely the FA’s fault, but the system of accrediting journalists adopted by FIFA for this World Cup is utterly absurd. It has managed to exclude an African journalist of rare pedigree from his own World Cup through a system that never considered that he was an African interested in covering South African football, rather than England. What does this say about FIFA’s commitment to Africa and its football?