On SI.com yesterday…
The overall consensus is that the current global economic climate may prevent some from attending the 2010 World Cup in South Africa (the estimated average cost of a ticket is US $139) and that FIFA must “start giving life to the World Cup” as a result. But while making money is important to this venture (as it is to others), FIFA boss Sepp Blatter states that “it’s important to us that the Africans enjoy organizing their own World Cup” (I give Blatter some “cool points” for that comment). Also, Danny Jordaan whose helping to oversee World Cup preparations in South Africa made further comments stating that, if South Africans don’t attend both the 2010 World Cup and the Confederations Cup held in South Africa this year, that they are “never going to see them again on home soil, at least not in our lifetime.”
I’m no economist nor am I the final word on the status of either South Africa or the World Cup, but I think that all of this may be a lot of unnecessary worry.
I’m a liberal democrat, a group that’s extremely pessimistic about the global economy, but I still think that there’s a good chance that said economy will turn around sooner than most people think and won’t hamper folks from attending the most popular sports competition on the globe. C’mon guys, the World Cup is bigger than the Super Bowl (yeah, I said it). And even if the economy does slow things down, I think that all the World Cup-connected vendors that sell match tickets, airline tickets and hotel rooms will be forced to drop prices to get more people to the competition.
There’s also no need to worry about South African citizens attending both the World and the Confederations Cups. South Africa has a strong footie following and contains some great local clubs: the Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs to name just two. Plus, three excellent South African nationals play in the high-profile EPL: Aaron Mokoena and Benedict McCarthy, both at Blackburn; and Steven Pienaar over at Everton (my personal favorite of the three), which generates even more local interest in football.
Furthermore, Africa as a whole has made it’s mark on world football, thank to the likes of Samuel Eto’o, Didier Drogba, Mahamadou Diarra and many others on list to long to name here. So the global footie community does have a genuine curiosity about how the game functions on the continent and I think that they’ll want to come to South Africa for a closer look.
Yes, there are challenges in getting the World Cup festivities as close to perfect as possible, but I don’t thing that attendance to the match is screwed. Just my two cents.