The future is almost upon us,” declares the audio-visual presentation at Green Point, the only one of the 10 stadiums being built or refurbished for the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa to have a visitor centre. Cape Town’s showpiece stadium will stage eight matches during the World Cup, which runs from 11 June to 11 July next year. Designed by German architects GMP, Green Point will cost around R4bn (€356m), reach a height of 60m and have 68,000 seats, the minimum stipulated for a World Cup semi-final by FIFA, the international football federation, before going down to a permanent seat count of 55,000.

None of the other venues will be able to compete with Green Point’s setting, between Table Mountain and the south Atlantic, with Cape Town’s famed V&A Waterfront, one of the city’s main tourist attractions, a short walk away. But will the stadium, the city and the country be ready in time?


If it is a question of psychological preparation, no nation could be in better shape for a major sports tournament. The 2010 World Cup, the first to be staged in Africa, is being hailed in South Africa as the most important event since the advent of democracy in 1994; a showcase not only for the country but the continent. Though South Africa has won the Rugby World Cup on its own soil, this will be a far bigger challenge. The number of foreign visitors is expected to jump next year from nine million to 10 million, with 450,000 arriving purely to watch the football.


South Africans have already received scores of messages about the World Cup, from major sponsors such as Visa, which more than a year before kick-off began using the official 2010 logo in local billboard advertising, to the South African government, which has linked over R28bn (€2.5bn) in centrally funded infrastructure investment directly to the tournament. The country’s airports have been construction sites for more than two years already – Cape Town International is doubling in size – and delayed passengers currently find their progress into the cities further impeded by major highway upgrades costing more than R70bn (€6.2bn). One official body after another has declared itself “ready for the World Cup”, even the South African Navy. This brought ridicule from a local columnist, who asked how the sailors were going to be involved in the tournament: “Is their brass band playing at the opening ceremony?”


Abroad, however, there have been more questions about South Africa’s ability to have its facilities ready in time. This appears to have stung the organisers into avoiding any dash to the tape in the style of the 2004 Olympics in Athens, where the last workmen barely finished in time for the opening ceremony. Despite hold-ups caused by strikes, all of South Africa’s stadiums are on target for completion in October. The sole exception is Green Point, which will be ready in December – the stadium’s prime position meant the project was delayed by a fight between the African National Congress (ANC) government and Cape Town’s opposition-controlled administration, which supported complaints from nearby residents that their views of the ocean were being blocked.


However, such is the national determination to have a successful World Cup, local opposition has been bulldozed aside. Out on the windswept Cape Flats, where Table Mountain is just a silhouette in the distance, shack dwellers say they were moved out of their previous makeshift homes, because the authorities wanted to prevent an eyesore greeting football fans arriving at Cape Town International airport. In Nelspruit, capital of Mpumalanga province in the north-east of the country, there have even been allegations that the murder of a local ANC councillor was linked to his claims of corruption in the awarding of contracts for the construction of the Mbombela stadium, which will host four first-round matches.


Though graft is one of the factors blamed for a 30% overrun in stadium building costs, the government was so determined to prevent any hitches that it stepped in to pay the bill. The prestige of the tournament is also being used to push through infrastructure projects such as the Gautrain high-speed link between Johannesburg and Pretoria. Although it was planned long before South Africa’s bid for the World Cup, a 2010 deadline has been set for the trains to start running, while the upgrades to airports, rail connections and highways are due to be completed by next March.


Tourism has increased by 1,400% since the end of apartheid, giving South Africa plenty of hotel rooms of the standards required for next year’s influx, although, for the first time, FIFA is contracting other types of accommodation, such as bed-and-breakfasts and game lodges. The idea is that a tourist could wake up in a national park, go on a dawn game drive, fly to Johannesburg to see his team play and be back in the park by bedtime. Less wealthy visitors are being encouraged to come, even if they do not have tickets, with the South African organisers planning to emulate the “fan zones” set up in several German cities in 2006, when matches were shown widely on giant outdoor screens.


So what could possibly go wrong? Analysts dwell on three issues: the recession, South Africa’s notorious crime rate and match-day transport. Aided by the fact that during the South African winter there is no time difference with western Europe, the cumulative television audience for the World Cup is expected to be more than 25 billion. FIFA has already raised over $3bn (€2.1bn) from the sale of sponsorship and broadcasting rights, well above the $1.8bn it gained in Germany. But hopes of a timely economic stimulus in South Africa could be dashed if cash-strapped European and Latin American fans decide they cannot afford the long-haul trip to support their teams at a time of jobs uncertainty. FIFA considers its eight-team Confederations Cup, staged a year before the World Cup, a crucial test of readiness for the larger tournament, which is contested by 32 nations. But in Germany in 2005, nearly two-thirds of the 650,000 tickets for the Confederations Cup had been sold six weeks before kick-off. At the same point four years later, South Africa had sold only half of its 640,000 tickets.


Rich Mkhondo, chief communications officer for the World Cup Organising Committee South Africa, is upbeat, saying there were 1.8 million applications for the first tranche of 743,000 World Cup match tickets, 44% by South Africans, with England, the US, Germany, Brazil and Argentina, in that order, leading foreign applications. A total of three million tickets will go on sale for the tournament, but if foreign fans do not balk at the cost of supporting their team, they could be put off by fears for their personal safety. These are almost certainly exaggerated: the 2010 organisers point out that the country has hosted numerous major international events, such as the UN Earth Summit with few mishaps to visitors. When terrorism fears at home caused the organisers of the Indian Premier League cricket tournament to look for a new host, they had no qualms about coming to South Africa.


More than 40,000 special police officers are being recruited for 2010, and match-day security will be overwhelming. But international perceptions are another matter. Jens Weinreich, Germany’s sports journalist of the year, told a conference in Johannesburg recently that coverage of South Africa in his country was dominated by five points: “violence, violence, violence, corruption, and political instability. I do think it will influence the tourist sector in advance and during the World Cup.”


The worst problem could result from South Africa’s attempts to reform chaotic public transport systems in the major cities, where thousands of unregulated minibus taxis filled the vacuum left by the old apartheid regime’s failure to develop mass transit systems. Operators battle each other for custom, frequently using firearms to settle their differences and intimidate passengers trying to use municipal buses. Many vehicles are as unroadworthy as their drivers, who work long hours for little pay.


With the World Cup as a deadline, the government is seeking to regulate the industry and bring in ambitious bus rapid transit (BRT) systems – with buses using dedicated central lanes – to carry fans to matches next year. But taxi operators claim they have not been consulted and are threatening disruption, even though they are being offered as much as R7.7bn (€685m) to replace their vehicles. The potential embarrassment if football supporters are prevented from reaching the stadiums would be multiplied for the government, which points to the BRT project when critics ask what the World Cup is doing for millions of poor South Africans who will not be able to afford tickets to matches. Uncertainty over how the issue will be resolved is the main headache facing the organisers in the months that remain.


However, so much national prestige has been invested in the World Cup, the South African government will do anything in its power to make the event a success. The one thing it cannot control is the performance of the national team, known as Bafana Bafana (The Boys). If Bafana Bafana made the quarter-finals, South Africans would consider it had been worth hosting the World Cup. If they won, it would be as though Mandela had been elected President all over again.