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| Plan: With one notable exception African teams disappointed on the pitch at the World Cup. No doubt about that, but off the pitch the predicted horror stories failed to materialise. "I would consider it a success that people coming back from outside after us hosting the events say we can host major events,” former Black Stars defender and member of Ghana's Organising Committee for the 2008 African Cup of Nations told us. Hosting the World Cup was part of a plan to promote Africa, especially South Africa. "It was something that we wanted to do," the CEO of South Africa's World Cup, Dr Danny Jordaan, told us exclusively. "In 1990 Mandela walked out of prison. 94 we had our first democratic elections and one of the things that we had to make sure of is that we must not be forgotten by the international community – South Africa must be discussed at the dinner tables, the lunch tables of the big business companies and I believe that our aim must be to be discussed at every dinner table and coffee table of the world." Success: It was an ambitious programme that would propel South Africa into the Premier League of event hosting. Jordaan explained the philosophy behind the bid. "We then decided to follow a major event strategy," he said. "We hosted the Rugby World Cup in 1995: the African Cup of Nations in 1996, 1998, the World Athletics Championship, and 2002, the cricket World Cup to sustain a development consciousness of a united nation in our country. The strategy continued with the t20 World Cup in 2007 and other events in different sports too. They lost out to Athens for the Olympic Games of 2004 and controversially to Germany for football's World Cup of 2006. "We are hosting 2010 and what that has done is two things that is important," said Jordaan. "One is that South Africa was not forgotten after 1994. Secondly and perhaps more importantly, through hosting all of those major events there was infrastructure improvement in our country." By those measures South Africa's World Cup was an unqualified success. Infrastructures: Jordaan's vision for the improvement of infrastructures was not confined to sport. He wanted to see development achieved through the World Cup. "Airport expansion: broadcasting, all of those things – everything," Jordaan explained. "It was not only the stadiums. It was many other things. A number of hotels have been built in our country and investment – direct investment – as well as, of course, tourism." Jordaan warms to his theme. "We have seen an 11% annual growth in tourism," he says. "I think that through hosting major events we have been quite successful in keeping the focus on our country, developing South Africa as a country, getting the infrastructure improvement, because in most countries the period of liberation or democracy there is a decline in the infrastructure, especially those countries that went through the decolonisation process. In our case from 1990 to 2008 the infrastructure in our country has improved and is much better. Our economy is much better." But the World Cup and the visitors and revenue that it brought has come and gone. Infrastructures are now in place, but South Africa has to fend for itself without the guaranteed market of the World Cup to rely on. Their future use needed planning too. |
