Beyond the reach of FIFA: football and community ‘development’ in rural South Africa, towards a politics of inclusion and sustainability

Abstract

The real legacy of the 2010 World Cup is that people in the focus areas of Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg–Tshwane may have received some benefit from infrastructural development while much of the rest of South Africa has fallen further behind those globally projecting conurbations. Though the literature on sport and community development is growing rapidly as is work on legacy and mega events, there are few studies that examine initiatives generated within local communities, particularly those located well away from the activities of international sport development agencies. In this paper, we examine a village football team in rural Mpondoland in the far reaches of the Eastern Cape located well away from the impact of World Cup football-related initiatives. We also explore activities of international sport development agencies. We examine the motivations of the players, the community role that football plays and how community-generated initiatives might be supported and nurtured with full involvement and democratic decision-making practices embedded into the operation of local sporting groups. Understanding the hurdles faced in resource-strapped communities will enhance discussion of the ways in which sporting development can be supported rather than imposed and become sustainable in the future.

Notes

1. Cannadine, Ornamentalism.

2. Shilling, The Body and Social Theory, 57.

3. Strother, ‘Display of the body Hottentot’, 43.

4. Nauright, ‘Colonial Manhood and Imperial Race Virility’.

5. Vivanco and Gordon‬, Tarzan Was an Eco-tourist.‬.

6. Carton and Nauright, ‘Last Zulu Warrior Standing’.

7. Bale, Imagined Olympians, xvii.

8. Booth and Nauright, ‘Embodied Identities: Sport and Race’.

9. Coalter, ‘Sport-for-Development’, 1374.

10. Tomlinson et al., Development and Dreams.

11. Coalter, ‘Sport-for-Development’, 1386.

12. Levermore, ‘Sport: A New Engine of Development?’, 189.

13. One can argue that missionary promotion of sports for converts throughout the colonial world in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries constitutes earlier attempts to use sport for development, however, in the contemporary sense of the term, we see renewed efforts at sports proselytism from the 1970s onward with significant development since the latter 1990s.

14. Mchombo, ‘Sports and Development in Malawi’, 320.

15. Jones and Lavallee, ‘Exploring Perceived Life Skills Development’.

16. Gould et al., ‘Coaching Life Skills through Football’.

17. Tomlinson et al., Development and Dreams; Saayman et al., ‘Analysis of Spending Patterns’; Turco et al., ‘Socio-Economic Impacts of Sport Tourism’; Saayman et al., ‘Economic Impact of Visitor Spending’; Giampiccoli et al., ‘Destination South Africa’.

18. Seers, ‘The Meaning of Development’.

19. Kidd, ‘A New Social Movement’; Mchombo, ‘Sports and Development in Malawi’; Willis, ‘Sport and Development’.

20. Levermore, ‘Sport: A New Engine of Development?’, 187.

21. Manzo, ‘Development through Football’, 551.

22. Mchombo, ‘Sports and Development in Malawi’, 334.

23. Jones and Lavallee, ‘Exploring Perceived Life Skills’.

24. Gould et al., ‘Coaching Life Skills THROUGH Football’.

25. Alegi, ‘The Political Economy of Mega-Stadiums’.

26. Mathur, ‘The Resettlement of People, 157.

27. Giampiccoli, ‘Hegemony, Tourism and Globalisation’.

28. Ife, Community Development, 208.

29. Graham, ‘Julius Nyerere’, 60.

30. Data are at Municipality level. As in the village only black residents are present and the data here used include only the black portion of the population of the municipality which, nevertheless corresponds to 163,670 individuals compared to 1175 ‘Coloureds’, 177 whites and 64 Indians or Asians.

31. Beinart, The Political Economy of Pondoland.

32. Mcetywa, Mpondo Heritage, 72–5.

33. See previous section about the topic.

34. Mcetywa, Mpondo Heritage, 8.

35. Patel, ‘Poverty, Gender and Social Protection’, 118.

36. Devereux, Building Social Protection Systems in Southern Africa, 6.

37. Lecup and Nicholson, Community-Based Tree and Forest Product Enterprises, 11.