Scarlett Cornelissen

The 2010 Football World Cup as a Political Construct: The Challenge of Making Good on an African Promise:

It is today widely understood that sport mega-events are complex affairs which originate from specific sets of economic objectives but which have political and social corollaries that usually extend far beyond the event itself. Sport megaevents are generally initiated and driven by cadres of societal (ie, political and corporate) elites and are aimed at satisfying development goals or ambitions around projection, competitiveness or growth targets. In the planning, implementation and execution of events, however, cultural, social and other imprints are left that can have enduring impacts on the society. Further, the economy of sport mega-events has developed to such an extent internationally, that events have gained a self-perpetuating dynamic of their own, characterized by distinct coagulations of interests and the predominance of certain corporate actors. The gains that are widely thought to be made from participation in this mega-events ‘market’ prompt states continually to seek involvement: noticeably, once a country is able to break into the international arena of hosting mega-events, this stimulates the desire to attract more and often larger mega-events. Once on the mega-event circuit, there is an aspiration to host more of them (Hiller, 1998), often without proper attention to the economic and social counter-costs of events. These aspects are highly visible in post-apartheid South Africa’s engagement with sport mega-events. Slightly more than a decade into the new democratic dispensation, sport mega-events have seemingly come to play an important socio-political role. Prompted by the successful hosting and victory of the 1995 Rugby World Cup, a more or less sustained campaign has been undertaken by political and other elites to make bids, with varying degrees of success, for the hosting of some of the most important events on the world sports tournament calendar. Underpinning this, at least from the government’s perspective, is an attempt to utilize sport mega-events as key social and political instruments: on

Towards redefining the concept of legacy in relation to sport mega-events: Insights from the 2010 FIFA World Cup

Increasingly, governments from both the developed and developing world look to hosting sport mega-events as a way to stimulate development. There is much debate over what the legacies of sport mega-events are, how to stimulate positive legacies and how they should be studied. Drawing on a growing body of scholarship on legacy best and worst practice, this article discusses the economic, physical, infrastructural, social, political and environmental consequences of sport mega-events, using insights from South Africas hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. It examines pertinent debates, highlights prominent approaches to assessing legacy impacts, notes the lack of consensus on the meaning of ‘legacy’, and suggests steps towards a clear definition of the concept. These include the need to consider event impacts in relation to the context in which they occur, and to integrate triple bottom-line principles systematically into mega-event planning, design and evaluation.

The geopolitics of global aspiration: Sport mega-events and emerging powers

What is the significance of the fact that several recent or upcoming sport mega-events are hosted by emerging powers such as China (the 2008 Beijing Games), India (2010 Commonwealth Games), South Africa (2010 FIFA World Cup), Russia (2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi) or Brazil (2014 FIFA World Cup)? This paper analyses events hosted by three states of the emerging power (or so-called BRICSA) axis. These are the 2008 Olympics, the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the 2010 New Delhi Commonwealth Games. It suggests that the hosting of such events by todays emerging powers occurs through a common agenda: to showcase economic achievements, to signal diplomatic stature or to project, in the absence of other forms of international influence, soft power. Furthermore, emerging powers can reshape the way in which events are viewed, planned for and commercialized, and by which they impact upon stakeholders. In all, sport mega-events constitute a key part of the political imagineering of emerging powers, serving as a focal point both for the type of society and state these authorities try to create, as well as for the position in the international order these rulers attempt to craft. While this strategy has some success, it also tends to come at some material and symbolic costs for these states.

Crafting Legacies: The Changing Political Economy of Global Sport and the 2010 FIFA World Cup™

Abstract This special issue focuses on the political contours of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ and explores some of the possible legacies that are likely to be left in the wake of the tournament. As crucial processes of planning and policy-making gain momentum, a number of prominent features start to appear and provide some indication of likely longer-term outflows from the event. These include the manner in which infrastructural preparations toward the event are based around the development of key mega-projects which, while aimed at providing an underpinning to the hosting of the event, are also leaving significant imprints on urban spatial planning and budgeting; the extent to which central economic sectors are targeted in the assignment of resources, but also how specific economic actors (construction firms, etc.) are absorbing much of the invested public capital; and finally, the ways in which broader state-building processes tend to be tied to the perceived agenda and requirements of the upcoming event. The special issue therefore addresses some of the major political questions that arise from the emergent patterns of capital expenditure, sectoral developments, and social-cultural processes prompted by the event.

Scripting the nation: sport, mega-events, foreign policy and state-building in post-apartheid South Africa1

Arising from the growing commercial and broader importance of sport, politics around the hosting and bidding for major sport events have become key elements of state engagements in the contemporary era. This essay explores the role of sport mega-events in the processes of foreign policy-making and state-building in post-apartheid South Africa. A key argument is that such events have become an important instrument in the development of foreign policy and domestic goals for the country. Two particular strategies are evident: that of dualling, referring to the twofold use of events toward the achievement of national and international objectives; and that of linking internal and external policy targets, as a means of raising the effectiveness with which goals are pursued. As the country prepares to host the prestigious FIFA world football finals in 2010, some lessons may be taken for the foreseen and undesired corollaries such strategies may pose for the country.

Producing and imaging ‘place’ and ‘people’: the political economy of South African international tourist representation

ABSTRACT Tourism is increasingly recognised and studied for its economic, political and social importance. This article examines the political economy of tourist imaging in South Africa, and its effect on tourism impact in the country. It investigates the nature of the international tourism production system that South Africa is part of, and the role of producers, particularly tour operators and marketers, in the creation and dissemination of distinct images. It is shown that the image that is predominantly sold by such producers in international markets—focused on the natural, rather than the cultural components of the South African tourist product—is a continuation of the image established during the apartheid era. This has a developmental impact, moreover, as tourist imaging affects tourist flows. This negates the attempts of the South African government to develop and promote a more encompassing image, one that is dually aimed at meeting some of the domestic, political and economic objectives of the government, and shore up some of the governments foreign policy endeavours. Overall, analysing the political economy of a sector such as tourism can provide useful insights into some of the strategies used by developing countries to participate in global systems of production and consumption, and factors that influence their success.

Sport Mobility and Circuits of Power: The Dynamics of Football Migration in Africa and the 2010 World Cup

Abstract As a result of factors of globalisation and enhanced commercialisation, the migration of football professionals has become a very important facet of world football. West European leagues, where processes of commercialisation have been most robust in recent years, constitute the epicentre of international football migration, with these leagues attracting most of the worlds athletic talent. Africa is a primary source for football flows to Western Europe, an aspect which is mostly viewed as exploitative and an extension of neo-imperialist relations between the continent and its former colonial powers. Over the past decade, however, South Africa has emerged as an important alternative destination for many of Africas departing footballers. This article focuses on the nature and implications of this phenomenon. It explores the ways in which emergent tendencies of Africa to South Africa football movement correspond with or refract from Africa to Europe migration in terms of its underlying dynamics, and considers what possible effects South Africas hosting of the 2010 football cup could have on an incipient form of sport mobility on the continent.

More than a Sporting Chance? Appraising the sport for development legacy of the 2010 FIFA World Cup

Abstract This article appraises the sport for development initiatives that were implemented or augmented during the 2010 fifa World Cup hosted in South Africa, and reviews the processes, institutional features and likely consequences of those initiatives for the sport for development sector in the country. It does so against the background that sport for development is a growth industry, albeit one with many conceptual and operational deficiencies, and which offers little in the way of an evidentiary base for the claim that sport has intrinsic social benefits. To date, too, there has been little cross-fertilisation between the sport for development field as a practice of development, and the growing body of scholarship that assesses the development impacts of large-scale sporting events. Given its distinctive setting and the intense international interest in its potential yields, the 2010 World Cup provoked a flurry of sport-centred development programmes implemented by a variety of international, domestic, public and private actors. This stimulated an interesting change in dynamics in the established sport for development landscape which, in time, may shape the sector and the broader sports environment in the country in both positive and negative ways. The case of the World Cup also offers some insights about the way in which sport for development practices can be mediated or altered in the context of sport mega-events.

Mega Event Securitisation in a Third World Setting Glocal Processes and Ramifications during the 2010 FIFA World Cup

During South Africa’s hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, it was both the security successes and failures of the tournament, as well as the capacities of the state, that drew scrutiny. The country faced some significant challenges in its attempts to make the event ‘safe’. This article provides an overview of the major processes of securitisation in the 2010 finals, reviewing the role played by domestic and external actors, and the way in which the supranational and glocal character of mega event securitisation in the contemporary era shaped developments in the country. It offers an assessment of the physical, social and symbolic legacies of World Cup securitisation, both for the national state and urban environments.

Football's tsars: proprietorship, corporatism and politics in the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

This essay explores the political economy of the 2010 World Cup as it is defined by the major commercial, corporate and political forces that have come to be prevalent in the organization of the FIFA finals. It examines the interchange between international and domestic processes of sport corporatization, commercialization and general trends of sport politics, and the resultant current features of tournament preparation. It contends that the wider political economy of global sport will exercise a modulating and a potentially restraining influence on many of the objectives set by South African authorities. Pre‐event preparation is marked by the involvement of large commercial actors that hold proprietorship over the central – and most lucrative – aspects of the tournament, such as its branding, promotion and mediatisation, and the dissemination of tickets. Driven in the main by neomercantilist impulses, and the ambitions of a global class for whom the commercial stakes are very high, the 2010 World Cup is highly unlikely to yield the gains – for South African football and society – that are popularly expected from it.