Festivalisation and Urban Renewal

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Festivalisation and urban renewal

in the Global South: socio-spatial
consequences of the 2010 FIFA World
Cup
a
Malte Steinbrink , Christoph Haferburg & Astrid Ley
Institute for Geography, University of Osnabrck , Osnabrck ,

Germany
b
Institute for Geography, Friedrich-Alexander Universitt

Erlangen-Nrnberg , Erlangen , Germany
c
Habitat Unit, Institute for Architecture, Berlin University of

Technology , Berlin , Germany
Published online: 16 May 2011.
To cite this article: Malte Steinbrink , Christoph Haferburg & Astrid Ley (2011) Festivalisation and
urban renewal in the Global South: socio-spatial consequences of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, South
African Geographical Journal, 93:1, 15-28, DOI: 10.1080/03736245.2011.567827
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Vol. 93, No. 1, June 2011, 1528
Festivalisation and urban renewal in the Global South: socio-spatial

consequences of the 2010 FIFA World Cup
Malte Steinbrinka*, Christoph Haferburgb and Astrid Leyc
Institute for Geography, University of Osnabruck, Osnabruck, Germany; bInstitute for Geography,
Friedrich-Alexander Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg, Erlangen, Germany; cHabitat Unit, Institute
for Architecture, Berlin University of Technology, Berlin, Germany
Sports mega events increasingly take place in the metropolises of emerging

economies. As a city-marketing tool, these events are said to make the host cities more
visible in the international competition for foreign and domestic investments.
Infrastructural upgrades and fast tracking of urban development projects, as well as
giving focus and legitimation to urban policy makers, are supposedly the further
benefits of hosting mega events. This recalls the Festivalisation of Urban Policy
hypothesis by Hauermann and Siebel, which describes the instrumentalisation
of large-scale cultural and sports events to support image building and to catalyse
urban development in European and US cities. Given that socio-economically very
heterogeneous nations increasingly host these events, it is necessary to extend the
debate and to investigate whether the political, economic and social effects in these
countries of the Global South conventionally labelled as the developing world can
be explained with the festivalisation hypothesis: Are the urban development effects
qualitatively comparable and, if so, are they more strongly or weakly pronounced than
in the Global North? The 2010 International Federation of Football Association World
Cup in South Africa is a fitting example to explore the characteristics and dynamics of
mega events in the host cities of the Global South.
Keywords: mega events; festivalisation; urban renewal; 2010 FIFA World Cup; urban
planning
Introduction
The 2010 International Federation of Football Association (FIFA) World Cup in South
Africa is representative of a trend throughout the last decade: mega events are
increasingly taking place in the Global South, especially in countries known as emerging
nations with high economic growth rates. These countries approach the old industrial
nations in economic terms and are also characterised internally by a huge gap between
wealth and extreme poverty (Matheson and Baade 2004). From an urban studies
perspective, the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa is a fitting example through which
the characteristics of mega events in the Global South can be examined. This contribution
is concerned with the transferability and extension of the hypothesis of festivalisation
(Hauermann and Siebel 1993). The following questions guide the analysis of this paper:
(1) What economic and political interests are behind the allocation and hosting of mega
events? (2) What are the socio-spatial consequences of these interests for host cities in
South Africa?
*Corresponding author. Email: malte.steinbrink@uos.de

ISSN 0373-6245 print/ISSN 2151-2418 online
q 2011 Society of South African Geographers
DOI: 10.1080/03736245.2011.567827
http://www.informaworld.com
16
M. Steinbrink et al.
Nations and cities in the Global South are becoming increasingly successful in
applying to host big international events. In 2010 alone, the Commonwealth Games were
held in New Delhi, the Expo in Shanghai and the FIFA World Cup in South Africa. In
2014, the FIFA World Cup will put the world focus on Brazils cities. In addition, Rio de
Janeiro has been awarded the 2016 Olympic Games and Durban is preparing for the 2020
Olympic Games application. As a city-marketing tool, mega events are said to make the
host cities more visible in the international competition for foreign and domestic
investments.
This recalls the festivalisation of urban policy hypothesis by Hauermann and
Siebel (1993), which describes the instrumentalisation of large-scale cultural and sports
events to support image building and catalyse urban development in European cities.
In light of the current mega event trends in socio-economically very heterogeneous
emerging nations (see Figure 1), it is necessary to extend this discussion and to
investigate whether the political, economic and social effects in the Global South can
be explained with the festivalisation hypothesis: Are the urban development effects
qualitatively comparable, and, if so, are they more strongly or weakly pronounced than in
the Global North?
Economic rationalities and the political symbolic meaning of the World Cup
The current contextualisation of major events (Hauermann et al. 2008) focuses on the
metropolitan scale. However, examining festivalisation in the Global South demands the
inclusion of national politics and global economic factors. The FIFA World Cup is a
highly commercial and simultaneously extremely political event. How these two defining
elements are interwoven is highly constituent of the processes surrounding the event and
influential for the urban development dynamics that the event initiates or stimulates. From
an economic perspective, FIFA auctions the right to become the events showground. The
national associations application forms are called bid books and present what the
potential host nations can offer FIFA in exchange for being selected. What respective
interests lie behind this deal?
Gini-coefficient
0.240.31
0.310.38
More equal
0.380.45
0.450.55
0.550.71 More unequal
No data
Winter olympics
Summer olympics
Football world cup
Figure 1. The Gini coefficient of the countries and locations of sport mega events from 2000 to
2016 (illustration by the authors based on information in Le Monde diplomatique 2007, p. 53).
17
FIFAs economic interests

FIFA is the owner and the content provider of the World Cup and operates according to
market principles. The event must be profitable for FIFA the 2006 FIFA World Cup in
Germany generated FIFA a profit of over 2 billion US Dollars (Du Plessis and Maennig
2009). FIFA forecast profits of 3.2 billion US Dollars for 2010 (Mail & Guardian Online
18 June 2010, ZEIT Online 8 June 2010). In order to ensure financial success, FIFA leaves
as little as possible to chance and just as little to the host countries: it has developed 17
compulsory requirements for potential hosts. This catalogue stipulates conditions
regarding immigration regulations, security measures, information and communication
technology, the protection of property and marketing rights, the health care system, as well
as rules regarding central financial technical questions relating to the FIFA World
Cup. These stipulations are secured through national guarantees, which were provided by
the various responsible ministries in South Africa.
The fact that FIFA can enforce its demands with government-backed guarantees
illustrates how strongly FIFA can influence national politics and how willing the host
nation governments are to accept that influence. The political stakeholders clearly hope to
gain something by hosting a World Cup in South Africa too.
South Africas political interests as host

The political expectations that South Africa attached to hosting the 2010 World Cup
encompass domestic and foreign affairs, as well as economic political interests. Already
during the application process, South Africa underlined the special meaning the global
event would have for the African continent (Cornelissen 2004). After selection, a widereaching African narrative was conveyed (see Maharaj in the issue). The host nation
emphasised the events global symbolic value and employed pan-African rhetoric and
discourse which former President Mbeki captured when he said that
we want, on behalf of our continent, to stage an event that will send ripples of confidence from
Cape to Cairo an event that will create social and economic opportunities throughout
Africa. [ . . . ] We want to show that Africas time has come (Mbeki 2003 quoted in Desai and
Vahed 2010).1
This message confirmed the 2010 FIFA World Cup official slogan: Ke Nako: Celebrate
Africas Humanity.2
According to this, the mega event was intended as a political vehicle to change Africas
image from the continent of crises, catastrophes and wars and to show it in a new, positive
light. The World Cup was meant to help Africa achieve greater international respect and
contribute to its emergence from a long phase of global political insignificance. This rhetoric
expanded Thabo Mbekis emancipatory idea of an African renaissance. There again, the
rhetoric and the African packaging of the event also illustrate the New South Africas
claim to be a leading regional power (Van der Merwe 2008, Soest 2010).
In domestic political terms, the tournament took place at a very convenient time for the
ANC, which had been caught in a crossfire of media criticism since Mbekis resignation in
September 2008. The FIFA World Cup gave South Africas new president Jacob Zuma
the opportunity to profit from the prestige of the event. Reciprocally, the tournament
dominated the news coverage so that significantly less space was available for
government-critical analyses. In this context, the sport is significant for the production of a
national feel-good-effect. Football is a political vehicle and politicians understand the
magic of the big moments that allow people to forget the trials of their everyday lives.
18
In South Africa, especially, sport plays an important societal political role in the nationbuilding process. Immediately after the end of apartheid, the ANC government started
trying to employ the nations general enthusiasm for sport for political ends. That was the
case during the 1995 Rugby World Cup (one team, one nation) as well as the 2003
Cricket World Cup. With the 2010 FIFA World Cup, footballs pacifying and muchtrumpeted integrative potential was again to be used as a generator for a national sense of
belonging in the imagined community (Anderson 1983).
In economic political terms, the expectation of investment and growth impulses was
crucial to the bid. Hosting the World Cup is part of a strategy to rebrand South Africa
worldwide as a safe, well-governed country. Good infrastructure, a high level of
technology, efficient economic structures and a high quality of life were intended to attract
investors (Kersting et al. 2010).
Whose costs, whose benefits?

FIFAs profit interests and the South African governments political ambitions
intermingled during the preparation phase of the tournament and culminated in the
shared target of hosting the World Cup successfully. Given the aspects mentioned
previously, it is clear that success is defined in this context as achieving a highly
sophisticated show piece with associated imaging effects. In the run-up to the 2010
championship, this aim caused substantial pressure in the host cities, which culminated in
enormous event-related investments (see Figure 2).
Meanwhile, the total investment volume is estimated to comprise up to 4 billion Euros
(Sunday Independent 11.7.2010). In Germany in 2006, the figure was approximately 3.4
billion Euros. A comparison of the share of these investments in terms of the per capita
gross national product of both host nations clearly shows that South Africas financial
burden is, relatively seen, 15 times larger than Germanys. It seems questionable that
Germany would have agreed to host the World Cup if it would cost 50 billion Euros.
The investments required by FIFA mean a financial bind. The question then arises about
the opportunity costs, about whether the money could not have been better invested
elsewhere. However, government politicians and World Cup organisers reject such doubts:
Government expenditure on the World Cup is not at the expense of other priorities. I challenge
anyone to say that money is being diverted from social, housing, health and education projects
for this World Cup. The tournament will bring huge benefits to our country [ . . . ] (Jordaan,
cited Nevin 2008).
The 2010 FIFA World Cup was repeatedly proclaimed to be the motor for achieving
general growth and development aims more quickly. It would contribute to increasing the
gross domestic product and employment rates and improve the nations infrastructure:
The 2010 Soccer World Cup will make an important contribution to our effort to
accelerate our progress towards the achievement of the goal of a better life for our people
(Mbeki 2006). In view of such speeches, it is hardly surprising that the reports,
commissioned by the South African government in the run-up to the World Cup, produced
very optimistic evaluations (Thornton and Feinstein 2003).3
The prosperity argument is cited before every mega event, although, until now,
independent ex-post analyses have recorded insignificant or no positive impulses for the
national or regional economy (Baasch 2010, Maennig and Schwarthoff 2010). This
discrepancy is so noticeable that one could assume that politicians assertions about
immense growth impulses mainly serve to positively prepare the population for the
19
Figure 2. Host cities and stadiums of the 2010 World Cup (Haferburg and Steinbrink 2010).
tournament. Public enthusiasm for the event is obviously a condition for its success in
the commercial sense for FIFA and in the political sense for South Africa.
Unknown side effects of festivalisation in the Global South
As already mentioned, it is vital that the political economic dimension with the
institutional and economic power of the associations (here FIFA) as well as the national
political level is included in the discussion on the festivalisation in the Global South. For
urban research, this means looking beyond the city limits. This background illustrates
what priorities were behind the concrete planning interventions that were part of the World
Cup preparations and with what power these were advanced at the expense of other aims.
In face of massive urban planning challenges for the host cities in the Global South, the
investigation of the establishment of these priorities and the concrete urban-structural
effects of the planning interventions is particularly urgent.
The following research focuses on the question about the transferability of the
festivalisation thesis to the Global South. Special attention is paid to whether mega events
in the Global South create particular effects. To begin with, two assumptions can be made:
(1) in view of the lower GDP in these countries, the burden as well as the potential positive
20
effects is of more national and regional economic consequence than in the old industrial
nations (Maennig and Schwarthoff 2010). And (2) we can assume that the event-induced
interventions in the built environment as well as in the political process of planning are
more profound. These assumptions allow the hypothesis to be made that a mega event in
the Global South has disproportionately more forceful effects on urban development than
in the Global North. But are these more strongly positive or negative and for whom?
A central statement by Hauermann et al. (2008, p. 267) is useful as a starting point:
[ . . . ] there is [ . . . ] no known case, in which the realisation of a singular event alone has
turned the direction of development around and realigned it [translation by authors].
If this general statement also applies to the festivalisation in the Global South, it
would mean that there too mega events do not per se positively or negatively affect the
development direction, but merely accelerate already existing trends and, in line with
the previous assumption, more strongly than in the North. This demands a review of the
general tendencies in those cities in which mega events take place.
Urban development trends in the New South Africa
At the football World Cup in South Africa, impulses from the mega event met the societal
context of post-apartheid transformation, which is still marked by extreme economic and
social imbalance. According to the World Bank classification, South Africa is an upper
middle-income country. However, behind this classification lies an average value that
conceals the differences in living conditions: hardly any other countries have such an
unequal distribution of income; the Gini coefficient is the second highest in the world, after
Brazil, the host of the next FIFA World Cup (UNDP 2008).
Clear spatial patterns in South African cities reflect these extreme economic disparities.
The line between affluent and poor urban areas remains almost identical to the borders of the
so-called Group Areas during apartheid. Former white residential areas are often still home
to the wealthy, and the worst living conditions still dominate in townships and informal
settlements. This also applies to lack of service provision and inadequate transport links
between the urban areas. Although the pattern of inequality is to some extent a legacy of the
apartheid era, aspects of the countrys current neoliberal economic policies and rapid
urbanisation are sustaining it. Johannesburg, with the Gini coefficient of 0.72, is currently
held to be the city with the highest level of social inequality worldwide (UN-Habitat 2010).
After the end of apartheid, the number of city dwellers grew significantly due to natural
population development and compensatory urbanisation. Consequences such as housing
shortages and infrastructure deficiencies combined with the socio-spatial fragmentation
present the greatest challenge to post-apartheid urban planning. In the 1990s and at the
beginning of the new millennium, urban policies tried to counter the fragmentation with a
vision of an integrated post-apartheid city; ambitious programmes and strategies were
developed and implemented. However, economic liberalisation has led to a consolidation
of the situation. In urban policy practice, the guiding principle of social equality has been
increasingly replaced by growth-oriented competition. Johannesburg, Cape Town,
Durban, Pretoria and Port Elizabeth, in particular, want to reinvent themselves as worldclass cities. Hosting the World Cup provided a good opportunity to do that.
Urban-structural and socio-spatial consequences of the World Cup
The development tendencies in todays post-apartheid city can be summarised as follows:
increasing urban poverty, planning policies founded decreasingly on social equality,
21
worsening inequality and a continuing fragmentation of urban space. According to the

hypothesis outlined above, it can be assumed that hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup has
reinforced these tendencies. In order to assess this, we examine three aspects (1) the
provision of urban housing, (2) informal economic cycles of the urban economy and (3)
urban traffic development policies.
Housing provision
More than every 10th South African lives without appropriate shelter as an inhabitant of
an informal settlement, in a backyard shack or as a subtenant (Rust 2006, p. 15). In 2010,
the Housing Backlog is approaching 2.1 million dwellings (The Africa Report from 21
April 2010). The government has long been striving to ease the shortage by subsidising
low-cost housing. Meanwhile, in South Africas cities informal forms of accommodation
are spreading disproportionately to population growth (SSA 2001). And it is apparent
that the mega event has reinforced this development:
(1) The 2010 FIFA World Cup preparations and the public investments in the eventrelated infrastructure were accompanied by inevitable national budget restructuring, which meant cuts for subsidised housing projects. As early as 2007, the then
housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu warned that hundreds of thousands of new
dwellings could fall victim to the 2010 World Cup (Mail & Guardian Online 15
February 2007) an impressive example of the World Cups opportunity costs.
(2) In addition, there was a cost explosion in the building sector. The extensive building
activity before the World Cup caused construction material and land prices to
increase. The rise in prices meant that less public housing could be built. The
delivery rate sank and the housing shortage increased (Sisulu 2007, Mpofu 2008).
(3) A further point is the displacement of low-income sections of the population during
the course of renewal and gentrification of conveniently located districts or urban
areas near the stadiums (see Van Blerk in this issue). An example of this is Bertrams
in the immediate proximity of Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg. In the context of
a large-scale urban renewal initiative Greater Ellis Park Development Plan the
city wanted to revitalise the area around Ellis Park. The upgrading process resulted
in displacements of former inhabitants of this district and moreover the fast-track
character of implementation meant an exclusion of those affected by the urban
regeneration into decision-making processes (Benit-Gbaffou 2009, p. 208).
Examples like Bertrams illustrate how mega events can contribute to greater
marginalisation as much in the spatial as in the social sense.
(4) The most direct intervention in the housing and living situations of poorer city
dwellers are resettlement measures. Such measures have quite a tradition in
connection with mega events (Horne and Manzenreiter 2006, COHRE 2007). Local
authorities and sport associations often see informal settlements as eyesores in the
cityscape that have to be removed.4 Here, again Hauermann et al. (2008, p. 265)
can be cited:
Because major events have the primary target of spreading a visible image of the
city internationally, there is the inevitable tendency that in the course of major event
policies everything invisible in the city is regarded as unimportant. This of course
includes the many social problems that cannot be integrated into the positive image
[translation by authors].
In the Global South, it is almost impossible to hide the social problems because they
present themselves very clearly in the form of informal settlements. The international
22
attention before and during the event creates a need for action in urban policies to
deal with the visible problems or, indeed, the visibility of the problems. The time
pressure typical of such events leaves no space for long-term strategies. Therefore,
demolishing and resettling often seem to be the simplest way to make the social
problems invisible as quickly as possible.
Such measures mostly affect settlements that could appear particularly negative
to the media or international visitors especially informal settlements near airports,
stadiums or major roads. In South Africa, the best-known example is the N2 Gateway
Project in Cape Town, which intends to redevelop six informal settlements along the
N2 city highway between the airport and the city the Gateway to Cape Town (see
Figure 3).
The project to the Citys image-building efforts particularly with regard to the
World Cup is clearly captured by the Western Cape Housing MEC, Marius
Fransman, who commented that, with the 2010 Soccer World Cup coming to Cape
Town, we have to deal with the informal settlements along the N2 (cited in Graham
2006, p. 240). In the course of the project, large parts of the settlements have already
been demolished. Thousands of the former inhabitants have been rehoused in transit
camps in Delft particularly in the Temporary Relocation Area on the Symphony
Highway (cynically called Blikkiesdorp or tin village), which is very reminiscent of
a refugee camp.
The resettled dwellers were initially given the prospect of returning, but due to
delays and rent increases most of them were not able to return to the N2 Gateway area
(COHRE 2009, p. 1, Newton 2009). They have to permanently establish themselves
in Delft. In a report, the Development Action Group has highlighted the serious
social consequences of this resettlement as people are disconnected from livelihood
opportunities (DAG 2007).
(5) The biggest danger is that the short-term project policies become part of the
legislation and planning practice and will be still effective in the long term after the
Figure 3. Informal settlements along the N2 highway in Cape Town (Graham 2005).
23
Figure 4. Ellis park precinct and exclusion zone (Wafer 2010).
World Cup. According to Huchzermeyer (2008), these tendencies are beginning to

show in South Africa and she warns against a rejection of democratic participatory
processes and a return to repressive approaches that are in some ways reminiscent of
apartheid.
Informal economic cycles
Mega events are often accompanied by the necessity to formalise the local economy.
Because the marketing of merchandise products contributes to the refinancing or profits of
major events, the whole trade sector is subjected to strict controls. This particularly affects
informal traders. In urban areas, the informal sector is extremely important for securing a
livelihood. In the face of a national unemployment rate of 25.3%, this sector offers the
only form of employment for many households (SSA 2010).
To comply with FIFA requirements and to ensure the protection of their trademark
rights, informal traders were increasingly driven out of the inner city areas during the runup to the World Cup. Only FIFA-licensed traders were allowed to do business in
Johannesburgs two official fan parks and in the exclusion zones surrounding the two
stadiums Soccer City and Ellis Park (Figure 4).
Over 200 street vendors had been driven out of the exclusion zone around Ellis Park
Stadium by 2009 (see Figure 4). Even informally run stalls to provide food for the builders
on the stadium building sites were prohibited (Wafer 2010).
Thereby, the host cities gave FIFA control of certain urban areas in order to maximise
profit whilst taking on the challenge of making it clear to the countless street vendors
that they were not allowed to sell anything related to the World Cup because that
would infringe on FIFAs trademark rights. FIFA requirements and the host cities
24
implementation practice created a situation unbeneficial to the local economy. The strict
regimentations and measures imposed by FIFA and the host cities forced small, informal
vendors, who wanted to generate an income with their own creative interpretations of
football, off the market.
Urban transport development

South Africas road and rail networks, like South African urban structures in general, are
the result of central government planning and legislation based on the principle of
racial segregation (Duthion 2002). In accordance with the apartheid city model, the
infrastructural integration of the individual zones was explicitly discouraged (Braumann
et al. 2010). Since the end of apartheid, urban traffic planning has had the task of
overcoming segregation while simultaneously creating the precondition for sustainable
urban development. In reality, however, over the past 20 years, the condition of South
Africas urban traffic system has become increasingly alarming. This applies to both
motorised individual transport as well as public transportation.
The 2010 World Cup was meant to provide both the crucial impulse for sustainable
urban traffic development and the arguments for the long overdue investment in the
dilapidated infrastructure. However, transport policy was caught between the short-term
requirements of the event FIFAs demands and the needs of international visitors and
the long-term urban development aims. In the run-up to the World Cup, traffic planning
was meant to kill two birds with one stone. In fact, some of the aims were almost met. The
existing public transport system was expanded and now copes better with the increasing
numbers of passengers something the economic development of the cities will also
benefit from (Habacker 2010). It can be assumed that this infrastructural impulse given by
the World Cup will have positive long-term effects. However, this optimistic appraisal is
opposed to the educated guess that by no means all of the urban community will profit
from the improvements in this area. The investments made in the transportation system
also reflect a certain prioritisation: the focus was on the events short-term demands and
economic aims. Investments were primarily made in the modernisation of the existing rail
network (including representative station buildings), in expensive prestige objects such as
the Gautrain in Johannesburg, the expansion or new construction of international airports
and the modern Bus Rapid Transit System. Street building was mainly concentrated on
inner city projects, as well as airport links. Projects in peripheral districts were postponed
for the time being. It can be suggested that the poorer sections of the population have
profited comparably less from the transportation projects. The World Cup has not really
aided urban developments ambitious political aim of overcoming the fragmented urban
structure caused by apartheid.
Conclusion: a successful World Cup?
The 2010 World Cup was great! is probably what most of the worlds football fans are
saying. The doubts about (South) Africas capabilities that were raised in the media (see
Hammett in this issue) have since proven unfounded. With the blow of the first whistle,
even the constant talk of the dangerous World Cup (Korth and Rolfes 2010) was
drowned out by the vuvuzelas. Apart from complaints about the latter, the ratings by FIFA,
international visitors as well as TV viewers were consistently positive. The World Cups
preparation and execution were effective and targeted. In this respect, and in terms of its
own logic, the 2010 FIFA World Cup was a great success.
25
The interests of (inter)national sports associations, the host nation and the host cities
lie behind the organisation of such a mega event. These dimensions are key to understand
the context of justification as well as the systematisation of important outcomes and side
effects of the first football World Cup in Africa. This paper has shown that the host nation
followed the far-reaching foreign and domestic political interests while FIFA, as content
provider, principally targeted profits. As a result, the aim to stage a successful, outwardly
oriented tournament was shared. This constellation of interests is critical to the
understanding of the urban policy effects of mega events. The powerful alliance of globaleconomic and national political interests limits the scope of the host cities urban policies
and the potential to capitalise on an event in terms of their own development aims: the
immense exertion of external influence reduces plannings steering capacities.
The aspects that we have discussed (housing, informal trade and transport) clearly
support the assumption about the reinforcement of existing urban development trends
as outlined in the festivalisation hypothesis by Hauermann and Siebel (1993) and
Hauermann et al. (2008). With regard to the greatest post-apartheid urban planning
challenge the breakdown of inner city disparities the 2010 FIFA World Cup has not
made a positive contribution. On the contrary, the event further intensified the fragmentation
and marginalisation of already disadvantaged groups. The infrastructural improvements
were not aimed at the integration of marginalised areas either, and the developments in the
housing sector confirm once again that mega events contribute to displacement, segregation
and housing shortages. With this in mind, there are considerable doubts that the event was a
real success for the majority of the host cities populations.
Many of the hopes stirred up by FIFA and the government regarding the economic and
social consequences of Twenty Ten remain unfulfilled. Whether the social agenda was
just political lip service (Pillay and Bass 2008) or the cities capacity to act was too weak
vis-a`-vis national political interests or the profit targets of external players remains
unanswered. It is certain, however, that inhabitants of marginal settlements will suffer
most from state austerity measures induced by the previous mega spending. As recent
protests against the Zuma government have shown, the cuts are not being taken quietly. It
is becoming apparent that the feel-good effect of the tournament will not counterbalance
social tensions in the long term.
The 2010 FIFA World Cup is only one example of the current trend in event hosting,
and further empirical studies especially from an ex-post perspective are needed to
comprehend aspects of the transnational streaming of urban policy and urban development
through mega events. This requires a comparative approach a comparison between
South Africa and the next World Cup in Brazil would be appropriate. The arguments made
in this paper could form the starting point for a conceptual expansion of social sciencebased urban research with regard to a more comprehensive understanding of mega events
in the Global South.
Notes
1. These words, often quoted in relation to the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, stem from a
letter from the then South African president to the FIFA president Sepp Blatter; the letter was part
of South Africas bid book.
2. Ke Nako ( Sesotho/Setswana) means Its time.
3. The report commissioned by the South African government in 2003 and conducted by the
international economic advisory agency Thornton and Feinstein as part of the bid process came to
the conclusion that by hosting the World Cup South Africa could achieve noticeable effects in
material and immaterial areas, the value of which would significantly exceed the governments
26
investment volume. They assumed a GDP increase of 31.3 billion Rand. In addition, the
consulting firm forecast a tax income of 7.9 billion Rand and 159,000 additional jobs, which
would in turn lead to a relief for the national social system (Thornton and Feinstein 2003).
4. For the EXPO 2010 in Shanghai, the resettlement of 400,000 people was announced, and New
Delhi (India) wanted to become slum free before the 2010 Commonwealth Games 2010
300,000 slum dwellers were compulsorily resettled between 2003 and 2006 (COHRE 2007).
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South African Geographical Journal