Loosing the World Cup

Who won the World Cup? The eleven men playing together on the football pitch? The one country searching for national pride and international recognition in its first such victory? The entire planet of socially separated peoples all seemingly united in one enthusiasm by the shared spirit of open competition? All of these answers are in their own way correct, and the diversity of perspective latent in their individual formations illustrates just how difficult it is to define the word "winner." However, when it comes to a similar but quite different question, who lost the World Cup, the answer is much clearer: the homeless of South Africa.

Why this is the case may not be immediately obvious. To glean the answer one has to keep in mind that the World Cup is not just a sporting event, it is an economic stimulus package. It means an average 2.7 billion USD increase in a country's GDP through tourism and sponsorship alone, which can translate into years of sustained progress for a developing nation. In his final presentation to the FIFA committee, Africa's bid chairman, Irvin Khoza, said that the economic benefits of the 2010 World Cup would "enable [our country] to help in bringing development, future and hope to all the football loving people of South Africa." In one sense, this promise held true: there are ten new or upgraded stadiums around the country, new roads leading into Host Cities, airports of an international standard, a Gautrain in Johannesburg and a modernized train station in Cape Town, city greening and a plethora of new city artwork. For the gentrified elite that inhabit the city centers, Khoza's promise four years ago came true

However, the majority of South Africa's citizens are not wealthy land owners; they are urban squatters who benefit only indirectly from these urban accomplishments. Due to the siphoning of funds towards the World Cup, the 400,000 people on South Africa's wait list for government sponsored housing were put into a state of economic limbo. What is more, in order to unfetter host cities from the stigmas of their urban poor, slum dwellers where evicted from the zones around football stadiums that they had inhabited for generations and forcibly redistributed to facilities miles away from the city. For every hundred thousand dollars spent of the nearly 52 billion USD in World Cup improvements, one person was displaced since democracy took in 1994. That is over 500,000 people in total. The "towns" to which they were moved can hardly be called an improvement in quality of living.

Forced relocation and this form of aesthetic censorship in the wake of world media events, of course, is nothing new. Perhaps the most noteworthy in this trend is the 1988 Olympics, where the government of Seoul forcibly moved 15% of its residents. Additionally, in the run up to the 2008 Summer Games, it is estimated that Beijing displaced nearly 1 million of its inhabitants. This trend does not seem to be one anywhere near to stopping. The 2010Commonwealth Games are slatted to begin in just a couple of days in New Delhi, where an estimated 300,000 people have been moved in order to make the city slum free for opening ceremonies. Additionally, thirty-five informal communities are slatted for eviction in Brazil as they begin to get ready for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. While the Olympic Committee has agreed to add forced displacement to the areas of consideration (the United State's bid to host the 2016 Olympics in Chicago being the first ever to promise zero population displacement) for Olympic bids. FIFA on the other hand refuses to regulate or even acknowledge this growing phenomenon.

In South Africa, the government says that people were moved because they were in need of "immediate emergency housing relief" and denies that the relocations were an attempt to surgically modify the aesthetic image of South Africa for the World Cup. However, the residents of these camps see it slightly differently. "It's a dumping place," said Jane Roberts, a resident of unit M49 in Blikkiesdorp, "They took people from the streets because they don't want them in the city for the World Cup. Now we are living in a concentration camp."

What this brings up is a question of the human right to space. In England, for example, the right to space is so protected that a squatter who occupies an unused piece of property for 10 years gains ownership over it. It is seen as a system that is mutually beneficial because it ensures squatters a right to live as well as a reason for habitation and also prompts land owners to make sure their parcels are utilized. Placed in the context of South Africa, it has been suggested that this value system may have some tenable solvency. With five new stadiums and five existing stadiums in South Africa each capable of seating 45,000 people (the National Stadium seats 95,000), there is a real question over whether South Africa's three main sports (cricket, football and rugby) can fully utilize these massive facilities. In the 2009-2010 season,  South Africa's Premiere Football League played 212 games, and only four drew more than 40,000 fans. As Maura O'Connor, a South African journalist, put it, the stadiums are "white elephants" that "need a mathematician to figure out how they are going to...pay for [themselves]." So, why not allow squatters to repopulate the underutilized stadiums themselves? Think of it as a massive housing experiment. You simultaneously develop under developed urban resources as well as defining affordable housing zones, which, due to the visual introvertedness of these stadiums, answers surrounding concerns of NIMBY.

Politicians in South Africa love to speak of the "legacy" of the 2010 World Cup. Will its legacy be a series of derelict buildings? Or could this be a unique opportunity to address a national problem with singular urban vision that turns the losers of a collapsed economic system into winners.