Africa's World Cup: Critical Reflections on Play, Patriotism, Spectatorship, and Space

Introduction

Introduction PeTeR AlegI ANd ChRIS bolSmANN The WoRld CheeRed IN 1994 when Nelson Mandela became the first democratically elected president of South Africa. It celebrated again in 2010 when the World Cup—the world’s most popular sporting event— was successfully staged in the former land of apartheid. After Spain defeated the Netherlands to win the first World Cup played on African soil, global media heaped praise on South Africa for its warm people, high modernist stadiums, tight security, sound event management, adequate accommodation, functional transportation, and telecommunication networks. “The World Cup has been a triumph for South Africa,” wrote the Times of London; the competition “has soared beyond its problems to deliver one of the slickest tournaments on record [and] has generated a wave of national confidence.”1 The Wall Street Journal offered a literary nod to what may be South Africa’s most widely read novel, Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country, announcing, “Rejoice, the Beloved Country, toot your own vuvuzela.”2 Self-congratulatory headlines and stories filled South African television , radio, newspapers, and electronic media: “We did it, we showed the world,” Mark Gevisser put it in the Guardian.3 South African big business enthusiastically joined the praise singers’ bandwagon, taking out full-page advertisements in the country’s major dailies: “Today this is the greatest country in the world,” declared First National Bank, an official World Cup sponsor; “South Africa: you can be proud,” stated the Pick ’n Pay supermarket chain. “Anyone who wasn’t thrilled by the World Cup needs to see their psychiatrist,” said Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu in an interview with Time magazine.4 2 • AFRICA’S WoRld CuP In many ways, of course, Tutu was right. New and revamped stadiums , expanded airports, improved road and rail transport are tangible long-term legacies left by the tournament. Less tangible but at least as important were the emotional and thus temporary legacies of the World Cup: a sharper sense of patriotic unity and pride in a nation still deeply divided along racial and economic lines and a reinvigorated sense of pan-African solidarity. For those of us privileged and fortunate enough to attend matches, visit fan parks and public viewing areas,“do” vuvuzela, and party with thousands of visitors from around the world, the monthlong football fest was a physically exhausting and emotionally draining experience. This collection focuses on a remarkable month in the modern history of Africa and in the history of global soccer. Having published extensively on South African and African football, including a coedited scholarly collection, we invited an international team of academics, journalists, writers, bloggers, curators, photographers, architects, players , and coaches to write about their lived experiences at the World Cup. Combining essayistic writing with analytical insights informed by the latest scholarship, the authors wrote about matches, fan culture, media coverage, museum exhibits, grassroots football, and political and economic struggles related to the tournament. In so doing, the contributors reflect on what the World Cup meant to them and discuss the 2010 World Cup’s wider meaning, significance, complexities, and contradictions, both on and off the field of play. The book ComPRISeS FouR PARTS, arranged thematically.The essays in Part 1 consider the ways in which the 2010 World Cup refashioned urban spaces in host cities and the local struggles these changes engendered.5 At the heart of South Africa’s World Cup urban redevelopment initiatives were the stadiums. Municipal, provincial, and national authorities used publicly financed, architecturally impressive new stadiums as centerpieces of place branding campaigns. New stadiums were built in Cape Town, Durban, Nelspruit, Polokwane, and Port Elizabeth.6 In Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, Pretoria, and Rustenburg, stadiums underwent renovations, while several smaller training venues were significantly upgraded. Soccer City, the venue for the opening match and the final, situated on the road between Johannesburg and Soweto, was almost completely rebuilt and now boasts the largest seating capacity Introduction • 3 of any stadium in Africa (94,000). Its calabash exterior shell, perhaps inspired by Beijing’s Olympic Stadium (aka the Bird’s Nest), captured and projected the African symbolism of the tournament. Overall, stadium construction accounted for nearly half of South Africa’s total World Cup expenditures.7 While FIFA’s self-interest partly explains the enormous financial burden placed on South Africa for staging the World Cup, the role of South African boosterist coalitions in putting their stamp on the process should not be underestimated...