When the end of the sports boycott in the early ’90s allowed the country’s teams to compete internationally for the first time in decades, he recalled in one NEWSWEEK interview, South African fans thought their favorite soccer teams would blow away the African competition. It was a shock when, in the first outing, Zambia humiliated the visitors. The lesson? That the country’s isolation had given fans an unrealistic view of their teams’ strength.
Last Wednesday’s tragedy at Johannesburg’s overcrowded Ellis Park stadium-where 45 people were killed in a stampede-was another deep shock to South African soccer. And while the country mourned the dead, some were questioning whether the incident would also end the country’s bid to host the 2010 World Cup.
The country’s top sports official, Sports Minister Ngconde Balfour, says it won’t. But that’s unrealistic-South African soccer clearly still isn’t ready for prime time. Nor could the timing of the tragedy have been worse. Just last month, soccer’s ruling body, FIFA, announced its adoption of a rotation system to ensure that future World Cups are distributed fairly around the world.
Africa is to be awarded the 2010 Cup, with South Africa the clear front runner for that honor. Indeed, FIFA’s decision was at least partly calculated to salve South African resentment over losing the 2006 tournament to Germany in a vote that may have been swayed by hefty aid-and-arms packages Germany granted to several countries. (Among other African countries, only Morocco had been in the running for 2006.)
Even before last week’s tragedy, there was ample reason to doubt South Africa’s competence to stage the world’s most-watched sports event. Last November, for example, a key match between South Africa and Nigeria was canceled after South Africa fans pelted officials and Nigerian players with bricks and bottles because they felt a Nigerian goal should have been disallowed. “Our people must learn to accept defeat,” South African Football Association (SAFA) President Molefi Olifant said at the time.
The government has failed to address the root causes of such problems. Local reports say the Ellis Park stampede flowed from lack of control at the gates, slow reaction to signs of unruliness in the crowd and a miscalculation by management of interest in the evening game between the country’s two most popular soccer teams: Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates. With the 60,000-seat stadium already crammed with some 80,000 people, a crowd outside the park collapsed a gate, trapping people underneath when spectators surged forward. Sky News reported that spectators bribed gate officials to gain entry to the overcrowded stadium.
All point to a deeper truth: South African soccer remains ill-managed and corrupt.
That’s not for lack of attention. In 1996 a government commission led to the resignation of the soccer federation’s president after a judge found evidence that money meant for soccer development had been paid to soccer bosses and their families. The commission also was memorable for the comment by one owner, Chiefs’ boss Kaiser Motaung, that his club was the only one “not run on drug money.”
It wasn’t the first allegation that some soccer bosses dabble in rackets. Judge Benjamin Pickard wrote that international exposure had laid bare South African soccer’s inability to organize and market matches on a large scale. Unlike rugby and cricket, favored by whites, soccer didn’t grow in privileged communities, he said. “It developed on an informal basis on the streets and backyards of the townships and for many years remained at this level.” The club owners, he said, had became all-powerful: “The clubs were … applied to their pleasure and advantage, while the players did not receive wider recognition.”
Last year the sport tried to clean its own house. The National Soccer League, responsible for the country’s most popular divisions, created another commission to investigate a long list of corruption allegations. The commission found that match fixing and bribery were rampant in the top divisions. The commission recommended a total overhaul of South African soccer. It proposed suspending some officials and disbanding the security section of the Premier Soccer League-the league involved in last week’s tragedy at Ellis Park.
Sports Minister Balfour called for the recommendations to be implemented. Only some were. And soccer insiders say the report did nothing to stop rampant corruption in the game.
Faced with these failures, the government began threatening direct action. At the same time, Balfour and other officials reportedly confessed to FIFA their embarrassment about disreputable figures within South African soccer and vowed to clean up the sport in time for the 2010 World Cup.
Balfour also hinted that the government might enact legislation giving it the authority to restructure the sport from top to bottom. He gave the country’s top soccer federation until the end of January to come up with reform proposals. A proposal was issued, but never publicly debated.
Mbeki’s government clearly recognizes the problems facing the sport. The Ellis Park deaths can only add urgency to plans to carry out radical surgery-even if the level of South African soccer may temporarily suffer. Another judicial commission will investigate the events that led to the stampede. But it’s not too early to hope that the tragedy will speed up long-needed reforms. In the long term, that could mean more to the country than hosting a World Cup.
