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.

Notes

1 W Lemke. ‘For the World Cup to leave a real legacy’, Sport et Citoyenneté, June 2010, pp 8–9, at www.sportetcitoyennete.org/userfiles/image/revue_speciale_CM_2010.pdf, accessed 29 July 2010.

2 United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace, ‘Much more than victory and defeat: UN system prepares for the kick-off of the 2010 fifa World Cup’, unospd press release, 8 June 2010, at http://www.un.org/wcm/content/site/sport/home/newsandevents/events/pid/9009, accessed 29 June 2010.

3 Sport for development is one of the designations for a broad church of approaches and practices focused on the use of sport as a potential development tool. Other terms include sport-and-development, sport-in-development, development and sport and sport for development and peace. As noted by Coalter, the differentiation in terminology partly signifies the degree to which intervention programmes centre on development as the main purpose, or as an incidental outcome of sporting activities. F Coalter, A Wider Social Role for Sport: Who's Keeping the Score?, London: Routledge, 2007. Underlying the semantic distinctions, however, are also often significant differences in orientations and practices. This article uses sport for development to refer to intervention activities that have an explicit social development focus.

4 See, for example, R Levermore & A Beacom, ‘Sport and development: mapping the field’, in Levermore & Beacom (eds), Sport and International Development, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2009, pp 1–25.

5 F Coalter, ‘The politics of sport-for-development: limited focus programmes and broad gauge problems?’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 45(3), 2010, pp 295–314.

6 The international development industry has been the subject of much scholarly criticism over the past number of decades. In one of the more elaborate critiques the anthropologist James Ferguson considers what development practitioners propound and the actual results of interventions, which more often than not show large discrepancies. For Ferguson the failings of the development industry are partly traceable to the ideological context within which ‘development’—as a moral rather than a practical pursuit—is often framed. See J Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: ‘Development’, Depoliticization and Bureaucratic State Power in Lesotho, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Sport scholars have made similar critiques about development-oriented sport interventions. See, for instance, Coalter, A Wider Social Role for Sport; and R Guillianotti, ‘Human rights, globalization and sentimental education: the case of sport’, Sport in Society, 7(3), 2004, pp 355–369.

7 See S Cornelissen, ‘A delicate balance: major sport events and development’, in Levermore & Beacom, Sport and International Development, pp 76–97.

8 For overviews of the institutionalisation of the sport for development movement, see I Beutler, ‘Sport serving development and peace: achieving the goals of the United Nations through sport’, Sport in Society, 11(4), 2008, pp 359–369; and B Kidd, ‘A new social movement: sport for development and peace’, Sport in Society, 11 (4), 2008, pp 370–380.

9 See J Mangan (ed), The Cultural Bond: Sport, Empire, Society, London: Frank Cass, 1992.

10 F Coalter, ‘The politics of sport-for-development’, pp 296–297.

11 In this regard, see critiques by R Levermore, ‘Sport-in-international development: theoretical frameworks’, in Levermore & Beacom, Sport in International Development; and S Darnell, ‘Power, politics and “sport for development and peace”: investigating the utility of sport for international development’, Sociology of Sport Journal, 27, 2010, pp 54–75. It is noteworthy how the sport for development movement has closely followed the vogues of the international aid regime, over the years shifting its focus on various aspects of social development to the present emphasis on the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals.

12 For critical perspectives on sport's role in gender dynamics in societies, see J Hargreaves, Sporting Females: Critical Issues in the History and Sociology of Women's Sports, London: Routledge, 1994; and H Lenskyj, Out on the Field: Gender, Sport and Sexualities, Toronto: Women's Press, 1990.

13 H Lenskyj, The Best Olympics Ever? Social Impacts of Sydney 2000, New York: State University of New York Press; M Raco, ‘Whose Gold Rush? The social legacy of a London Olympics’, in A Vigor, M Mean & C Tims (eds), After the Gold Rush: A Sustainable Olympics for London, London: ippr/Demos, 2004, pp 31–50.

14 Lemke, ‘For the World Cup to leave a real legacy’, p 8.

15 See K Mbaye, The International Olympic Committee and South Africa: Analysis and Illustration of a Humanist Sports Policy, Lausanne: ioc; C Merrett, ‘Sport and apartheid’, History Compass, 3(1), 2005; and S Ramsamy, Apartheid—The Real Hurdle: Sport in South Africa and the International Sport Boycott, London: International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa, 1982.

16 P Donnelly, ‘Sport and human rights’, Sport in Society, 11(4), 2008, pp 381–394.

17 A Grundlingh, ‘From redemption to recidivism? Rugby and change in South Africa during the 1995 Rugby World Cup and its aftermath’, Sporting Traditions, 14(2), 1998, pp 67–86.

18 Examples of long-existing programmes include Sports Coaches' Outreach (score; operating in South Africa since 1991 and focused on community development and leadership training through sport); Grassroots Soccer (an hiv/aids awareness programme founded in 2002); and the Lovelife safer sex campaign which also has a sport and community component. South Africa's hiv/aids pandemic has been a focal point for many of the sport for development programmes, providing a basis for partnerships between local sport ngos and international donors. One example is the KickAids programme, a collaboration between a South African sport training organisation, Altus Sport, and the German Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit, which has been in existence since 2004. See http://www.streetfootballworld.org/network/all-nwm/altus-sport-vuma.

19 See, for example, K Höglund & R Sundberg, ‘Reconciliation through sports? The case of South Africa’, Third World Quarterly, 29(4), 2008, pp 805–818; and M. Keim, Nation Building at Play: Sport as a Tool for Social Integration in Post-Apartheid South Africa, Oxford: Meyer and Meyer Sport, 2003.

20 Burnett's recent assessment of the sector is a notable exception. C Burnett, ‘Engaging sport-for-development for social impact in the South African context’, Sport in Society, 12(9), 2009, pp 1192–1205.

21 See S Cornelissen, ‘“It's Africa's turn!” The narratives and legitimations of the Moroccan and South African bids for the 2006 and 2010 fifa finals’, Third World Quarterly, 25(7), pp 1293–1309; and A Desai & G Vahed, ‘World Cup 2010: Africa's turn or the turn on Africa’, Soccer and Society, 11 (1–2), pp 154–167. The dynamic nature of South Africa's political system may be a factor in the shift in public sector espousals of South Africa's World Cup campaign. During the build-up to the event, for instance, the governing party, the African National Congress, experienced a fundamental change in leadership. The new administration led by Jacob Zuma, brought in on a populist vote, adopted an overtly poor-friendly approach to macroeconomic policy, at least at the outset, with some of the ultra-left factions in the administration, represented by the trade union movement and the Communist Party, promising a reversal in the neoliberal agenda pursued by Zuma's forerunner, Thabo Mbeki. See R Southall & J Daniel (eds), Zumani! The South African Elections of 2009, Auckland Park: Jacana Media, 2009, for an analysis.

22 These socio-political aims of the 2010 World Cup are perhaps best exemplified by the statement by the Minister of Sport, Mankhenkesi Stofile, who claimed that ‘The awarding of the 2010 World Cup host to South Africa by fifa is a legacy on its own. For South Africa and the rest of Africa, the memory of that tournament will be a lasting legacy. But we cannot end there … [We] believe that preparations for the 2010 World Cup must leverage the fast-tracking of some elements of our transformation agenda … [We] must use this opportunity to level the proverbial playing grounds, both in respect of infrastructure and otherwise.’ M Stofile, address at the International Year of African Football and 2010 World Cup workshop, Johannesburg, 7 March 2007.

23 See ‘The African Legacy’, at www.sa2010.gov.za/african-legacy, accessed 17 July 2010.

24 The origins of the campaign extend back to the creation in the late 1990s of the Global Campaign for Education (gce), a transnational civil society education pressure group that lobbies national governments for the delivery of basic educational services. A few years ago, under the framework of the mdgs, the gce joined ranks with a number of ingos, some multinational corporations, transnational educational associations, fifa and high-profile individuals and celebrities to establish an advocacy network furthering the goal of universal education. This network, known as the Class of 2015, initiated the ‘1 Goal Education for All’ campaign in association with the World Cup in the latter part of 2008.

25 Specifically, during a state visit to the UK in early March 2008, French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his British counterpart, former prime minister Gordon Brown, announced in a joint statement—held, significantly, at Wembley Stadium—an ambitious scheme by the two governments to provide financing for the schooling of 16 million children across the world as a contribution to the developmental goals of the 2010 World Cup. fifa's support for this highly symbolic scheme laid the groundwork for the establishment of the ‘1 Goal Education for All Campaign’ later that year. See ‘Joint press conference given by M Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the Republic, and Mr Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister’, at http://www.ambafrance-uk.org/UK-State-visit-President-Sarkozy-s.html, accessed 20 July 2010.

26 ‘Opening remarks by His Excellency, President Jacob Zuma at the Heads of State and Government 2010 Soccer World Cup Education Campaign Summit’, Government Communications and Information Services, Pretoria.

27 See R Levermore, ‘csr for development through sport: examining its potential and limitations’, Third World Quarterly, 32(2), 2010, pp 223–241 for an overview and discussion of this phenomenon.

28 ‘fifa hits snags in fulfilling World Cup vows in Africa’, transcript of broadcast on National Public Radio, USA, 27 July 2010, at www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128782351, accessed 28 July 2010.

29 Government of South Africa ‘Fact sheet—government preparations for the 2010 fifa World Cup™’, 2010, at www.sa2010.gov.za, accessed 8 July 2010.

30 Ibid.

31 An illustrative case is a violent demonstration in late October 2009 in a township bordering the Soccer City stadium, the World Cup's main venue, during which residents vowed that ‘there will be no 2010 because they had no houses and no jobs’, stating that the government was ‘pouring money into 2010 … why are they not pouring money into housing?’. ‘Riverlea residents demand 2010 employment’, The Times, 22 October 2009.

32 ‘Corruption may ruin 2010 World Cup for SA’, Mail and Guardian, 15 March 2008; and ‘Danny Jordaan's brother cashes in on 2010’, Mail and Guardian, 25 June 2010.