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

Integration, Marginalization, and Exclusion in World Cup Johannesburg

31 Integration, marginalization, and exclusion in World Cup Johannesburg mARC FleTCheR IN oCTobeR 2008, Bafana Bafana played an international friendly against Malawi at Germiston Stadium, east of Johannesburg. The eighteen-thousand-capacity ground appeared to be less than a third full at kickoff, but twenty minutes later, hundreds of ticketless fans were let in for free. My colleague, Dan, and I were two of a tiny number of white spectators in the crowd. While it was a midweek match of little competitive significance, the understated feel of the game was a sad testament to the national team’s inability to capture the public imagination eighteen months before South Africa was to host the World Cup. However, in May 2010, Bafana’s World Cup warm-up matches sold out in advance in much bigger stadiums than Germiston (despite higher ticket prices). The crowds in 2010 were not only larger but far more reflective of South Africa’s Rainbow Nation, with a large minority of white, coloured, and Indian spectators wearing yellow jerseys, blowing vuvuzelas, and waving South African flags. In a relatively short time, Bafana had metamorphosed from a sporting embarrassment to a focal point for national euphoria. Yet this transformation subtly and perhaps inadvertently masked the exclusionary character of the World Cup and the social divisions it reinforced in metropolitan Johannesburg.1 I had spent the 2008–9 football season following the Johannesburg branches of the Kaizer Chiefs and Manchester United supporters’ clubs as part of my doctoral dissertation fieldwork. At local games, I had become used to being one of a small number of white fans—sometimes 32 • AFRICA’S WoRld CuP the only one in a crowd of thousands. Throughout my research, the largely black, working-class supporters often expressed surprise at my presence at stadiums. I was asked to pose for photos with various fans, many of whom I had never before met. Within the organized supporters ’ group, I was often claimed as their “white fan” and used as a walking billboard to attract other white fans to sign up. Conversely, the Manchester United supporters were predominantly white, middle-class South Africans or European expatriates. Overall, I found that racial and class divisions were entrenched in South African football culture. Fans attending domestic league fixtures regularly constructed the local game as an “Africanized” space that stood in dramatic contrast to the consumption of European football in the pubs and bars of the city’s affluent (and mainly white) northern suburbs.2 While this dichotomy does not capture the complex nuances of football fandom in Johannesburg, it did make me skeptical of Nelson Mandela’s claim that “the World Cup will help unify people and if there is one thing in this planet that has the power to bind people, it is soccer.”3 The use of football to forge and maintain an inclusive national identity would have to overcome the profound divisions that have characterized the game’s history and culture in South Africa. oN WedNeSdAY, JuNe 9, 2010, the streets of Johannesburg’s commercial center, Sandton, in the northern suburbs, swelled and swayed with crowds of black, brown, and white South Africans wearing football shirts, waving national flags, and blowing vuvuzelas. Two days before the World Cup, courtesy of the Southern Sun hotel chain, a public show of support for the national team unfolded under the catchphrase “Sisonke [togetherness] in hosting Bafana.” Between 25,000 (according to the Sowetan) and 100,000 (said the Star) people congregated along the route taken by the open-top double-decker bus carrying the Bafana squad. Millions watched the parade live on television. By 10:00 a.m., traffic in the area had ground to a standstill. Television and radio encouraged people unable to make it to Sandton to leave work between noon and 2:00 p.m. to blow their vuvuzelas in support of the national team. I witnessed this crowd while stuck in city traffic. Within two minutes after midday, people had rushed out onto the streets and were making raucous noise. As I traveled through Johannesburg for the next hour or so, it be- Integration, Marginalization, and Exclusion • 33 came apparent that this street festival was widespread. The city suddenly was transformed into a place of celebration and carnival rather than the home of crime, poverty, and inequality. The following morning , the local papers gleefully reported how this event had unified all South Africans. The...