Belated Beginnings

Hi everybody.

My name is Naeem, and I will valiantly try to keep everybody abreast of all the happenings in the run up to 2010 and the hopeless endeavors of our national team (for those of you without advanced psychic abilities, I am South African).

After the disappointment of the awarding of the World Cup to Germany in 2006, because some New Zealand bloke decided to ‘abstain’ (*cough* bribed *cough*), it was justice that we were awarded it for the coming one in 2010. It is a WORLD Cup after all.

Much has happened since then, from workers striking for more pay and refusing to build (Sepp Blatter had to intervene), to the circus show that is the preliminary draw (and the African tenors, a bit over the top I’m sure you’ll agree).

So where to begin?

At the risk of being pedantic, I’ll do a quick run through of the major happenings since the draw, just to get up to speed:

May 15th 2004 – Sepp Blatter announces that the 19th FIFA World Cup will be hosted in South Africa after we got 14 votes to Morocco’s 10 and Egypt’s whopping zero. (As earlier stated, we should’ve hosted the 18th World Cup. To borrow a phrase from the English – WE WAZ ROBBED. Thanks Mr Dempsey).

The venues were subsequently announced. The biggest stadium will be in Johannesburg, called Soccer City, and will have a capacity of 104 000. That’s huge. After the World Cup it will probably be used as an ‘informal settlement’ or a homeless shelter, because there’s a bigger chance of Mr Charles Dempsey falling pregnant than filling that stadium for a PSL game.

The huge stadiums are not coming cheap though. It will cost South African taxpayers a monstrous 11 billion Rand (which at today’s exchange rate should get you about $4). That’s probably more than we spend on health care and security combined. A lot of criticism has been leveled at the government because of the huge bill, particularly because the country is fraught with poverty.

Then obviously there needs to be some sort of public transport, which at the moment consists of two elephants and a rhino. If you want to go anywhere in South Africa, you drive or walk. Public transport is non existent. Cue the Gautrain: At a cost of 24 billion Rand ($8.20), the Gautrain is a massive rail network connecting Pretoria to Johannesburg and the OR Tambo airport. Experts say however, that it is likely to become an elephant of a different kind (a white elephant) once the World Cup is over. Firstly, it will be too expensive for your average Joe on the street. Secondly, no person in their right mind would commute to and from one of the worlds most dangerous cities, carrying his work laptop in one hand, PDA in his briefcase in the other. That’s just asking to get mugged. I’ll take the highway thanks. Even if it does take 2 hours to get 40kms.

There have been criticisms that this country will not meet it’s deadlines and that the tournament will be moved somewhere else, allegations which were strongly denied by FIFA and lambasted by the South African government. There’s no denying that we as a nation face some serious challenges, but it would take something monumental to botch it so badly that the venue is moved. Nothing serious has materialized since we were awarded the bid, however the tragic murder of the Austrian on a private golf course in Durban highlighted one of the more pertinent problems with this country.

In the run up to 2010, I hope to keep everybody up to date with all the developments and will try to post something twice a week.

Right.

On to the national team.

We suck.

Period.

And no amount of money thrown at over-hyped Brazilian coaches is going to change that. We are paying Carlos Alberto Parreira 100 million rand (approximately 27% of our GDP) to coach our team up until the end of the world cup.

His results so far have been average, but at least there is some improvement on the field. There seems to be some sort of cohesion, which is a start I suppose and something probably quite difficult to achieve considering that we have 11 official languages in this country, one for each player on the field. But that doesn’t detract from the fact that our players aren’t especially good, and our youth development is not great either. I’m sure not many of you know, but South Africa has the largest soccer tournament in the world which is all well and good, but it seems the days of Lucas Radebe and Phil Masinga are long gone (you don’t know who either of them are do you?). Hopefully that changes soon, but don’t hold your breath.

But more on the team later.

On to the more pedantic part of this introductory post now, the part where I don’t assume everybody knows SA as well as someone who lives here (remember, there are no stupid questions, only stupid people).

Here are some facts…

South Africa is in Europe, nestled between the Tigres and Euphrates rivers.
If you believed that, you must be one of the 95% of Americans that can’t locate the USA on a map. I suggest you go try out for Miss Teen USA.

South Africa is on the southern tip of Africa, surrounded by the Atlantic and Indian oceans to the West, East and South. In other words, lots of beaches and sunny sky… can’t go wrong there. We are probably one of the most diverse cultures on this planet. You name it, we have it – Large European, Asian and of course African populations. Incidentally, approximately 1/3rd of our population is illegal immigrants. South Africa, being the ‘Jewel of Africa’ economically (which is like being the most intelligent person in ‘special school’), is highly popular amongst other impoverished African countries.

We have 11 official languages, but speak predominantly English. So for anyone coming to 2010, don’t worry because when you land at the airport, you can rest safely in the knowledge that you can request an elephant to take you and your baggage to your hotel, and you will be well understood. Once at your hotel, the receptionist will gladly show you to your tent and the hole in the ground where you can go to the toilet. Just be careful you don’t run into stray lions or hyenas though. They have a penchant for tourists….. Ok, last time I promise. South Africa is modern, has a booming tourist industry and has the largest game park in the world. But there are no lions in the street etc.

The country is very stratified in terms of being 1st world and 3rd world. We are classified as a 3rd world country, but the more affluent areas rival Europe in terms of infrastructure and of course traffic jams.

Crime is a serious issue in this country, caused largely by the dichotomy of rich and poor. Violent crime is especially alarming. It is not something that will be rectified by 2010, but that discussion is beyond the scope of this post.

Well I certainly hope that was informative and entertaining.

Any suggestions about what you feel this blog should concentrate on and any questions you might have will be highly appreciated.

Until next time, it’s goodbye for now.