South Africa 2010 - Is this really a good idea?

Chong

Anybody watch Louis Theroux's documentary last night called Law and Disorder was based on Johannesburg. The place looks flipping mental over there, the crime seems to be rampant, drugs rule everything.

Seriously what were they thinking when FIFA sanctioned the world cup to take place here.

_blank_

Africa was promised a WC.

It got Blatter votes in his campaign to become top man.

Simple.

mike65

It was never a good idea, only a political one. Australia is nailed on I'd say.

_blank_

It better not be Australia.

Jesus, I spent the last WC in the Southern Hemisphere, watching games at three and four in the morning.

Don't want to do that again.

ArmaniJeanss

There are violent areas of America (Therouxs Philly documentary last week), Germany and France (some Parisian suburbs are powderkegs), but I don't recall anyone suggesting that those World Cups should be moved for safety reasons.

South Africa will be fine for a World Cup (cricket and rugby world cups pased off without incident) and fans will be OK so long as they exercise sensible caution, which in fairness most football fans do.

Bounty Hunter

saw the title and assumed someone had watched Therouxs documentary pre-match of the day yesterday, but the WC should go ok even though the country probably still isnt ready to host such an event atleast they have the exp of hosting rugby and cricket WCs.

bobbysands81

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

There are violent areas of America (Therouxs Philly documentary last week), Germany and France (some Parisian suburbs are powderkegs), but I don't recall anyone suggesting that those World Cups should be moved for safety reasons.

South Africa will be fine for a World Cup (cricket and rugby world cups pased off without incident) and fans will be OK so long as they exercise sensible caution, which in fairness most football fans do.

There is no such thing as a safe area in Jo'berg though, and very few safe areas throughout SA. Everywhere else in the world has bad areas, the whole of Jo'berg is a bad area, it is quite simply not safe for tourists to go out of their hotels on their own.

I have travelled extensively through Africa and SA is easily the worst, and most dangerous of all the countries. There is nowhere in Germany or France that can rival areas of SA for violence, absolutely nowhere, you can't even compare the places they're that far removed from each other.

leninbenjamin

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

South Africa will be fine for a World Cup (cricket and rugby world cups pased off without incident) and fans will be OK so long as they exercise sensible caution, which in fairness most football fans do.

thing is though, while South Africa has always had its problems, in the past year or so there has been a massive surge in the amount of violence aimed towards foreigners (well migrants from other African nations to be more precise, but considering that 5 other African teams and their fans will be travelling to this WC, i think it's more than a cause for concern).

then of course there's the infrastructure problems. there's no way they are going to meet their deadlines. in fairness, a FIFA World Cup is much more demanding to host compared to the cricket (lol?) and rubgy world cups.

ArmaniJeanss

bobbysands81 wrote: »

There is no such thing as a safe area in Jo'berg though, and very few safe areas throughout SA. Everywhere else in the world has bad areas, the whole of Jo'berg is a bad area, it is quite simply not safe for tourists to go out of their hotels on their own.

I have travelled extensively through Africa and SA is easily the worst, and most dangerous of all the countries. There is nowhere in Germany or France that can rival areas of SA for violence, absolutely nowhere, you can't even compare the places they're that far removed from each other.

Interesting post. I'd always thought that SA was relatively safe except for certain areas of JoBerg. I've had friends do the touristy places, CapeTown etc this year and have no problems. I'd find it hard to believe that South Africa is the most dangerous place in Africa as you say, surely Ivory Coast, Sudan, Somalia are more dangerous.

leninbenjamin wrote: »

then of course there's the infrastructure problems. there's no way they are going to meet their deadlines. in fairness, a FIFA World Cup is much more demanding to host compared to the cricket (lol?) and rubgy world cups.

Agreed, soccer world cup is a different kettle of fish.
I thought though that the FIFA monitoring committee were happy after their last visit that everything was back on schedule.
Almost every Olympics and World Cup that I've been around for (and I've been watching footie since the 1978 World Cup in Argentina !) has had these 'wont be ready on time' stories in the news in the preceding years, and only once has it been true (the Colombia World Cup of 1986 moved to Mexico).

Cannibal Ox

bobbysands81 wrote:

I have travelled extensively through Africa and SA is easily the worst, and most dangerous of all the countries.

Been to Sudan recently? Somalia? I think the idea of the BBC reporting from a world cup in Zimbabwe might be a little more dangerous then reporting from South Africa :pac:

leninbenjamin wrote:

thing is though, while South Africa has always had its problems, in the past year or so there has been a massive surge in the amount of violence aimed towards foreigners

For reasons that have nothing to do with football or football fans. I think it's pretty unlikely that the reasons behind the violence between economic migrants and the unemployed in South Africa are going to spill over onto football fans.

I think it will be fine. There's more then just South Africa's image riding on this. It's a chance for the entire African continent to show a different side to itself that most people don't get to see. Everybody on the continent has a vested interest in seeing the WC go ahead without a glitch, and I'm pretty confident they'll do a good job of it.

What would be a disaster is if the world cup didn't go ahead in South Africa and was given to England (as has been bandied around by some media people) instead. First we took your country, then we politically/socially castrated you and now we've taken the world cup from you. Pissed off much? I bet you are.

bigstar

still, watching those two blokes at the end that would kill your kids or wife for money, made me a bit wary about the world cup. the place seems mental. if you do anything stupid, you might get burned, literally. im sure there will be more programs like that in the run up to the WC, sure see how the lions tour goes next year. i can still hear that girl saying "we want to burn him" Fcuk

yahoo_moe

bigstar wrote: »

still, watching those two blokes at the end that would kill your kids or wife for money, made me a bit wary about the world cup. the place seems mental

Absolutely the place seems mental - but for me, the whole point of the piece was that there's some weird kind of self-regulating system holding Jo'berg together (for the most part).

So my feeling would be that agreements (probably very shady ones) will be made before the tournament that will pretty much guarantee a relatively okay experience for anyone going there - and a nice clean spectacle for the TV viewers back home. After that, once the big-money political success leaves town, it'll be back to business as usual for Bad Boys and co.

But the tournament itself will probably be fine.

anonymous_joe

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

There are violent areas of America (Therouxs Philly documentary last week), Germany and France (some Parisian suburbs are powderkegs), but I don't recall anyone suggesting that those World Cups should be moved for safety reasons.

South Africa will be fine for a World Cup (cricket and rugby world cups pased off without incident) and fans will be OK so long as they exercise sensible caution, which in fairness most football fans do.

To be honest, I've been to some fairly dodgy places in my name, (slums in Brazil, Christ...) and I know some people who've been around hte world too, and I've heard nothing good about South African cities.

Hell, I've known a few Sith Ifricans in my time, and I know someone whose dad lives out there and it's fúcking scary. Not sure how many of you follow rugby, but the Lions Tour will almost certainly be seen by FIFA as a rehearsal so to speak.

I've been tempted to head down there this summer, but it's a dangerous place, and not somewhere I'd want to be relaxing in.

JimiTime

bigstar wrote: »

still, watching those two blokes at the end that would kill your kids or wife for money, made me a bit wary about the world cup. the place seems mental. if you do anything stupid, you might get burned, literally. im sure there will be more programs like that in the run up to the WC, sure see how the lions tour goes next year. i can still hear that girl saying "we want to burn him" Fcuk

Baby in the microwave just sent me over the edge! There are some truly evil people about!