Sports as cultural diplomacy: the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa’s foreign policy

Abstract

In order to win the rights to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup leaders of the post‐1994 government and soccer administrators used sport and cultural diplomacy as enabling instruments to assert South Africa’s credentials. Such a move was made possible by the fact that sport had been successfully used for decades as an oppositional tool against the apartheid regime. Another important contributory factor was that since 1994, South Africa’s foreign policy has been based on a vision of a ‘better South Africa, a better Africa and a better world’. This Pan‐African vision is defined by the following values: freedom, equality, solidarity and tolerance. These values also inform South Africa’s cultural diplomacy which underpins the staging of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Introduction

Football was a highly contested space during the struggle for national liberation in South Africa. The anti‐apartheid movement won an early, crucial victory when South Africa was suspended from FIFA in 1961, which kept the country out of international football until 1992. ¹ The apartheid regime deployed sport diplomacy in an attempt to promote minor reforms intended to end international isolation. In the wake of South Africa’s expulsion from the Olympic movement in 1970, Prime Minister John Vorster announced a new ‘multinational’ sport policy: ‘Europeans’ and ‘non‐Europeans’ (i.e. Africans, Indians and Coloureds in apartheid language) would be allowed to compete against each other as individuals in the open ‘international events’ (the Olympic Games, the Davis Cup, and so on) but not permitted to participate in racially integrated South African national teams. ‘Non‐racial’ sport within South Africa, however, was not allowed at club, provincial or national levels. ²

Vorster’s multinational policy led to one of the most politicized international events involving apartheid sport: the 1973 South African Games. The original list of participants read much like the continuation of the Cold War in the sports arena. It included West Germany, Britain, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Rhodesia. ³ Among Cold War allies, the South African Games elicited the reaction the regime had hoped for. Some sports leaders in the West praised the regime for what was perceived as ‘progress’. The Washington Post of 5 April 1973 quoted Baron Erik von Frenckell, a Finnish member of the International Olympic Committee, as saying: ‘I believe this means that it will only be a matter of time before South Africa will again be admitted to the Olympic Games’. ⁴ However, most countries withdrew from the event after pressure from anti‐apartheid groups.

African countries opposed such manoeuvres. In the case of Nigeria, Adebayo Olukoshi argues that sports have been an important and effective instrument of Nigeria’s foreign policy since the country’s independence from Britain in October 1960. Oroc Oyo, the first secretary of the Nigerian Football Association, noted how African delegates rebelled against Stanley Rous, the English president of FIFA since 1961, and voted for the Brazilian João Havelange in the 1974 FIFA presidential elections. Oyo recalled that ‘the plank of Havelange’s campaign was to ostracize South Africa because this was a clarion call of African football’. ⁵ Nigeria used sport for the purpose of attaining a foreign policy objective in 1976 when it boycotted the Montreal Olympic Games (along with 26 African nations and Iraq) in protest against New Zealand’s rugby contacts with South Africa. ⁶ Then, in 1978, Nigeria and other African members of the Commonwealth boycotted the Edmonton Commonwealth Games due to New Zealand’s continuing sporting links with South Africa, which were in breach of the 1977 Gleneagles Agreement. ⁷

In the late 1980s, negotiations between the African National Congress and the National Party got underway and began to change sport’s role in South Africa’s foreign policy. This shift was the result of a long and concerted effort by Dennis Brutus and other members of the liberation movements, including Essop Pahad. Until late 2008, Pahad was a member of the FIFA 2010 World Cup Local Organizing Committee (LOC) and a Minister in the President’s office. He told me in an interview that sport diplomacy played a role in thawing relations between Pretoria regime and the liberation movements. ⁸ Pahad’s testimony is worth quoting at length:

And when Sam Ramsamy took over (SANROC) from Brutus, the same thing happened and just to close that part of the story, when we met in Dakar [in 1987] then Tommy Bedford who was a former Springbok captain number 8 and myself were in touch in order to facilitate the meeting with Danie Craven because from my point of view we also wanted to use rugby to push our agenda for the liberation of South Africa. Danie Craven had his own agenda, he wanted the ANC in order to get back into world rugby and he said he will only get into world rugby through Africa [the Supreme Council for Sports in Africa] and he cannot get to Africa outside of the ANC. So both sides had their own set of interests and Danie Craven couldn’t come, the first meeting in London was with Louis Luyt … after Dakar, about two years after Dakar, then after the meeting with Louis Luyt we met in Harare with Louis Luyt and Danie Craven ... in London our delegation was led by Aziz Pahad and in Harare our delegation was led by the Secretary General of the ANC, comrade Alf Nzo, but included the present president [Thabo Mbeki], myself, Barbara Masekela, Steve Tshwete, I think Steve was abroad at that time. So we also had a very strong delegation from the ANC side. We also subsequently met representatives of South African soccer, Kaizer Motaung, Abdul Bhamjee, the former treasurer of SAFA, I forget his name, the old man, but we then also had meetings with the representatives of the soccer people from South Africa (including representatives of the Federation League). This was while we were in exile. ⁹

During the negotiations to end apartheid in the early 1990s, South Africa’s foreign policy and international relations were already changing. Some of the recommendations later incorporated into the foreign policy of the post‐apartheid government included ‘promoting such international relations, including trade, finance, culture and sport relations … [that] … will benefit the country [South Africa] as a whole’. ¹⁰ The democratically elected leaders of post‐1994 South Africa built on this previous experience and continued to use sport diplomacy to assert the country’s ‘African‐ness’. They also used sport to promote South Africa’s ‘soft power’ – that is, according to Joseph Nye, ‘the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments. It arises from the attractiveness of a country’s culture, political ideals, and policies.’ ¹¹ Such efforts sought to achieve strategic goals, such as the political and economic integration of the continent along the lines of the European Union. This historical background underscores how the liberation movement’s deployment of sport in support of the anti‐apartheid struggle partly explains the ANC’s contemporary enthusiasm for sport as cultural diplomacy in the democratic era. As Pahad’s testimony suggests, forces like the South African Non‐Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC) in exile, led by Dennis Brutus, as well as the ANC and other organizations, used platforms provided by the United Nations (UN), Organization of African Unity (OAU) and other international fora to enforce a sport boycott against the apartheid regime. ¹²

The spirit of Pan Africanism and 2010 FIFA World Cup

Most analyses of the 2010 FIFA World Cup ignore the historical context of South Africa’s bid and overlook the ways in which Pan Africanism shapes the country’s foreign policy in Africa. Then Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, in his address to South African ambassadors in September 1995, explained South Africa’s responsibilities in the continent in the following terms: ‘There are also expectations from Africa … Despite our own limitations and problems, it is our objective to make a significant contribution to ensuring peace, democracy and respect for human rights and sustained development. These principles are fundamental to our foreign policy.’ ¹³

In the formulation and implementation of South Africa’s foreign policy in Africa, the newly formed ANC government paid particular attention to concerted preventive diplomacy, including sport diplomacy. Aziz Pahad, the former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs notes that since 1994, South Africa’s foreign policy has been based on a vision of ‘a better South Africa, a better Africa and a better world’. ¹⁴ Consequently, the South African government identified some fundamental values essential to international relations in the twenty‐first century. These included freedom, equality, solidarity and tolerance. These values also inform South Africa’s cultural diplomacy – a fundamental force behind the staging of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

South Africa’s foreign policy in Africa, as Scarlett Cornelissen has noted, is at the core of understanding the nation’s commitment to staging a successful 2010 FIFA World Cup on behalf of the people of Africa. Cornelissen adopts the political economy paradigm to explain South Africa’s 2010 project. ¹⁵ Other scholars, such as Lincoln Allison and Terry Monnington, have argued that the links between sport and international relations has been ignored by academics who study international relations and foreign policy because it does not fit into the traditional disciplinary paradigms and debates. ¹⁶ Building on the insights of Cornelissen and Allison and Monnington, I argue that South Africa’s 2010 FIFA World Cup bid was influenced by the African philosophy of humanism, or ubuntu. The values of ubuntu originate from the isiZulu proverb, umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu. Loosely translated, it means: ‘you are a person because of other people’. This proverb highlights the importance of communalism and human solidarity to African values.

These values informed the pursuit of continental integration through the construction of Pan‐African institutions, such as the Organisation of Africa Unity (OAU, now African Union), which provided valuable political support for the struggle against apartheid. An important example of this cooperation came on 21 August 1989, when the OAU ad‐hoc committee on Southern Africa met in Harare, Zimbabwe, under the chairpersonship of Mohamed Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt. Delegations of the ANC, the PAC, the Mass Democratic Movement, and religious groups from South Africa also participated. This historic meeting adopted the Harare Declaration on Southern Africa, a document which set the parameters for writing a new constitution and beginning formal negotiations to end apartheid. The Harare Declaration, which the United Nations also adopted, ¹⁷ put pressure on Pretoria and moved it closer toward substantive negotiations. Thabo Mbeki later argued that international support for the Harare Declaration transformed it into the property not only of the South African liberation movements, but also of the peoples of Africa and the world. ¹⁸ The ANC government injected similar ideas into the country’s official bid to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup. After winning hosting rights, the government tried to emphasize how the mega‐event had the potential to represent not only South Africans, but also the peoples of Africa, the Diaspora and the world.

In historical terms, the discourse about African unity and solidarity, and the need for self‐confidence and positive thinking after centuries of slavery and colonialism, can be traced back to pioneering African nationalists like Pixley Ka Isaka Seme, the founder of the ANC. Born in Zululand in 1881, he was educated in the USA at Northfield Mount Hermon School and Columbia University in New York, and later attended Oxford University. Seme expressed Pan Africanist sentiments in a famous speech at Columbia in 1906 entitled: ‘The Regeneration of Africa’. ¹⁹ Seme’s speech expressed a continental approach to fight the scourge of racism throughout the world.

Therefore, since the early twentieth century, Seme and other African leaders were already developing a vision of human dignity, non‐racialism, and a more inclusive definition of human rights. Notwithstanding Seme’s use of the language of the day, influenced by biological determinism and essentialist understandings of ‘race’, he asserted the value and integrity of African humanity in the context of racism and colonial oppression. Seme argued, if ‘each is self’, then each person is endowed with the right to self‐determination. In his vision of African humanity he resisted comparing Africa with Europe because he wanted to affirm the distinctive character, quality and accomplishment of African humanity. Here we find a basic principle of human rights; people have a right to be the same, with equal citizenship under the law, but they also have a right to be different, to develop their distinctive ‘genius’ as Seme put it, through their language, arts, ethics, religion and other cultural formations. ²⁰

In the post apartheid era, Thabo Mbeki’s ‘African Renaissance’ owes a great debt to Seme’s ideas and principles. ²¹ In his welcoming remarks at the 2010 World Cup South Africa, Kick Off Workshop in Cape Town on 24 October 2006, Mbeki said: ‘Every day, as Africans, we speak of the need to respect the dignity of all human beings and embrace the universal values of ubuntu, of compassion and human solidarity.’ He went on to add that, ‘I must presume that we speak as we do, of the vital importance of the sustenance of the values of ubuntu, because the experience of human savagery directed against us, is deeply embedded in our collective memory’. ²² In his victory speech after FIFA awarded South Africa the hosting rights for 2010, Mbeki stressed the point that this was an African bid and the World Cup would be an African World Cup hosted in partnership with all of Africa’s nations. His definition of African unity also included Africans in the diaspora as equal stakeholders: ‘other Africans in the Caribbean, the US and Brazil – we want them to feel part of the African Cup’, he said in a later speech. The former South African president’s sentiments are echoed in NEPAD’s objective to ‘develop strategies for utilising the scientific and technological know‐how and skills of Africans in the Diaspora for the development of Africa’. This more expansive definition of ‘African‐ness’ found its way into the African Union’s Constitutive Act (as amended on 11 July 2003), which ‘invite[s] and encourage[s] the full participation of the African Diaspora as an important part of our continent, in the building of the African Union’. ²³ This larger context influenced Mbeki symbolic definition of the 2010 FIFA World Cup as an ‘African’ event to be shared with people of African descent.

Mbeki’s Africanist vision underpinned South Africa’s use of 2010 as a tool for sports diplomacy. The country’s World Cup bid, for instance, included consultation with the African Union and other continental multilateral bodies, such as Southern African Development Community (SADC). This diplomatic approach was designed to strengthen the Pan‐African identity of the event and also promote South Africa’s leadership in this overall effort. South Africa also tried to draw on Pan‐Africanist sentiments to gain support for its bid campaign among members of FIFA’s CONCACAF (North America, Central America, and Caribbean) confederation. ²⁴ Finally, South Africa edged out Morocco in the bid contest by using the ANC’s past experience in the global anti‐apartheid struggle, which had international solidarity as one of its four pillars.

Essop Pahad, supported by the able leadership of Irvin Khoza, Molefi Oliphant and Danny Jordan, emphasized this long‐established strategy of fighting on two fronts: in Africa and on the world stage:

We also went to different parts of the world to lobby, for example, Brazil, Argentina as Ministers but together with SAFA, because obviously you can’t go without Danny Jordan or Irvin Khoza but Danny came with us. We had a lot of discussions with people from Russia, people from other countries, a lot of discussions with Sam Ramsamy because Sam Ramsamy as a member of the International Olympic Committee Exco was also well connected to sporting people and leaders in sports in different parts of the world, for example, China, UK. Sam is very well connected, still is as a member of the IOC. So we had a lot of discussions with Sam, worked with Sam, also to get information from Sam about where are we with the bid, what are the difficulties, so that when we engage with the 2010 bid committee, as part of government then, we were not officially on the bid committee as such, we were able to engage with them properly. So let me reiterate, the credit of the work, the bulk of the work, the front runners of the work was the bid committee in which Irvin Khoza, Danny Jordan and Molefi Oliphant were the three key personnel but they needed the help from the national government, led by the Minister of Sport at that time, Minister Ngconde Balfour and myself as Minister in the Presidency … Morocco had the support of France, so that was a very powerful support that Morocco had, they were also in touch with the Asian Football Confederation … And so in our own strategising we had to take that into account, that Morocco would be our main competitor. But we were always confident … because we also had the support of Sepp Blatter, we knew that. But much more important we also had the support of the then head of the European Soccer Federation, the Swedish guy – He was very good I must say. When we went to lobby him he said to me, ‘Listen, don’t worry, you have my support’. ²⁵

Most of these strategies were informed by South Africa’s foreign policy based on these basic tenets: (a) pursue friendly relations will all peoples and nations of the world; (b) commitment to the ‘African Renaissance’ through the African Union and its programme for Africa’s Development (NEPAD); (c) Commitment to economic development through regional integration and development in the Southern African Development Community and the Southern African Custom Union; and (d) Interaction with African partners as equals. ²⁶

Neighbouring countries occupy a special place in South Africa’s multilateral foreign policy and, by extension, its 2010 sport diplomacy. The people of Swaziland, Lesotho and Botswana share the same language, culture and traditions as many South Africans. This cultural and historical affinity also informs South Africa’s interest in pursuing cultural diplomacy with both Zimbabwe and Mozambique, where amaNdebele, amaThonga and Tsonga people also have deep connections to South Africa. Also, the migrant labour system of apartheid familiarized black South Africans with their people from southern and central Africa. Such Pan‐African solidarity also influences South Africa’s cultural diplomacy with Tanzania. For example, the ANC donated both the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (SOMAFCO) and the Dakawa Vocational Institute to the Tanzanian government, which subsequently converted them into institutions of higher education. Finally, through cultural diplomacy, and in line with UNESCO’s goals, the South African government has funded the Timbuktu Manuscripts Project in Mali. ²⁷

Sport diplomacy and continental integration inform the 2010 LOC intention to spread the benefits from hosting the event to SADC countries. For example, representatives from neighbouring Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho (particularly from the hospitality sector) serve as committee members in official structures that are overseeing the planning of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. These structures also include representatives of South African provincial governments that share a border with these three southern African countries. In addition, countries such as Botswana, Namibia and Portuguese‐speaking Angola are kept informed on the planning process because they too are in line to reap economic benefits from the tournament. In April 2009 Mozambique signed a $75 million contract to renovate the Mozambique International Airport in time for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. ²⁸ In solidarity, countries linked to the Southern African Power Pool (e.g. Mozambique, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia) recently pledged to make emergency electricity generating capacity and transmission paths available to South Africa in 2010 to ensure that the country does not suffer power outages during the Soccer World Cup. ²⁹

South Africa’s sport diplomacy has been strongly supported by the African Union (AU). The AU welcomed South Africa’s commitment to make 2010 a truly African event. Members of the AU assembly committed themselves ‘to provide all‐round support to the government and people of South Africa in their efforts to organise the 2010 World Cup tournaments successfully and effectively’. ³⁰ They urged FIFA, the Confederation of African Football (CAF), the international sport community and friends of Africa to ‘provide the necessary support to South Africa in its preparation for the 2010 World Cup’. The AU also urged its member states to develop national programmes and identify African Union sport ambassadors to help implement the International Year of African Football, ‘Sports for All’ programmes, and the 2010 FIFA World Cup Legacy Programme. In January 2007 the AU’s assembly of heads of state and government launched 2007 as the International Year of African Football, to reinforce solidarity with South Africa in its hosting of the World Cup, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the CAF – and to celebrate the history of football in Africa. Through this initiative the AU sought to promote sport as an instrument for sustainable economic development and poverty reduction, peace, solidarity and social cohesion.

Additional recent examples of South Africa’s sporting diplomacy on the continent include assistance to Mali for its hosting of the Africa Cup of Nations in 2002. South Africa provided the West African nation with human resources, financial assistance, technical skills, communication facilities and transport (via South African Airways). According to CAF, South Africa’s assistance was crucial in keeping the tournament in Mali when, at the eleventh hour, it seemed that the competition would not take place. ³¹ To a lesser extent, the South African government also extended its help to Ghana when it hosted the African Cup of Nations in 2008. Another aspect of sports’ impact on South Africa’s international relations has been the use of its powerful private sector to finance and ideologically support South Africa’s 2006 and 2010 World Cup bids. Major companies such as MTN, the cellular phone giant, Standard Bank, and Multichoice Supersport, Africa’s leading satellite broadcaster, provide sponsorships and other financial support to African football as well as other sports.

These are not isolated examples of government and private sector cooperation in South Africa’s sport diplomacy. For example, SABMiller, the world’s second‐largest brewery, has worked with SAFA, provincial governments and the national Department of Sport and Recreation, to fund competitions of the regional Confederation of Southern African Football Associations (COSAFA), including youth and women’s competitions.

Acknowledging the crucial role of football in international relations, FIFA President Sepp Blatter told the media during a recent four‐day visit to South Africa about having ‘the privilege again to meet the monument of South Africa Nelson Mandela, who was so instrumental in bringing this World Cup to South Africa’. Blatter added that he relished the chance, ‘to offer him a small replica of the FIFA World Cup Trophy that brought tears to his eyes back on 15 May 2004 when South Africa was awarded the right to host the first African World Cup’. ³²

On 15 September 2008, when Blatter handed over a replica of the World Cup trophy he said: ‘you are the true architect of this FIFA World Cup; your presence and commitment made it happen. Now the first African FIFA World Cup is a reality and the FIFA Confederations Cup South Africa 2009 – the dress rehearsal – will already take place in less than ten months’ time.’ Mandela, who assigned the trophy a special place in his office, recalled: ‘I remember that moment back in Zurich. It’s an honour to welcome you here today. It was my desire to meet you and I am happy that we managed it. Thank you for this very special gift.’ ³³ Ex‐cabinet member Essop Pahad also remembers that path breaking occasion in Zurich: ‘we didn’t get the Olympics though Madiba (was involved with the Cape Town bid) but in Zurich we had three Nobel Prize winners in our fraternity, Madiba, de Klerk and Tutu, three Nobel Prize winners and we had the country’s President, and the then Deputy President at that time [as part of the delegation]’. ³⁴

Freedom, equality, solidarity and tolerance and the 2010 FIFA World Cup

The 2010 World Cup use as a tool of cultural diplomacy stemmed from the government’s position that political liberation marked only the beginning of freedom. This understanding evoking Julius Nyerere’s conceptualization of liberation as a four‐stage process is useful: (1) freedom from colonialist and racialist minority rule; (2) freedom from external economic discrimination; (3) freedom from the poverty, injustice and oppression imposed upon Africans by Africans; (4) mental freedom – an end to the psychological subjugation which makes Africans look upon other peoples or nations as inherently superior, and their experiences as being automatically transferable to Africa’s needs and aspirations. ³⁵ Nyerere’s conceptualization of the struggle for freedom is instructive because it aptly contextualizes the broader reasons for South Africa’s staging of 2010 FIFA World Cup.

A graphic representation of Pan Africanism and the international struggle against racism is evident in the official 2010 World Cup poster, which purports to use the profile of Cameroonian striker Samuel Eto’o Fils as the contour for the map of Africa. Eto’o was a likely candidate for this campaign since he said: ‘I’d like my country to win [the 2010 World Cup] but I am first an African before being a Cameroonian’. ³⁶ The choice of a global superstar like Eto’o not only celebrated African success on the pitch, but also highlighted concerns with racial abuse of African players overseas. In one famous incident in February 2006, exasperated by the insults hurled by the crowd in a Spanish league fixture, Eto’o started to leave the pitch before his Barcelona teammates persuaded him to return. ³⁷ The problem of European fans’ racism against Africans (often accompanied by chants mimicking monkeys) reared its ugly head again in February 2009 when John Mensah of Ghana and Olympique Lyonnais in France suffered similar abuse and, perhaps intentionally, earned a second yellow card and automatic sending off in the second half. Importantly, Michel Platini, European Football Association (UEFA) President, responded by establishing the Kick it Out programme to fight racism in football. Also, European football officials organized public forums under the theme of ‘Only a Game’ to carry this anti‐racist fight forward. ³⁸

The official World Cup poster also challenges the notion of South African exceptionalism – that the country is culturally, politically and economically outside the continent. By using Eto’o as symbol of unity, the poster presents an image of a symbiotic relationship between South Africans and their brethren elsewhere on the continent. Togo’s superstar Emmanuel Adebayor seemed to agree with this principle when he said at the CAF awards ceremony in Nigeria in February 2009 that, ‘As a unit, as a family, we can achieve. We must believe’ that Africa will stage a successful 2010 FIFA World Cup. ³⁹ After attending the 2009 CAF congress, Sepp Blatter commended African football’s ‘unity in approach’. He remarked: ‘During the 31st General Assembly of CAF this week in Nigeria, that unity and common sense of purpose was very much in evidence as African football gears up for its finest hour in June and July 2010.’ ⁴⁰

Some political leaders, football administrators and players aim to capitalize on football’s potential in promoting social cohesion and peace‐building. For example, there have been some successful initiatives in, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Rwanda. ⁴¹ Angola’s hosting of the 2010 African Cup of Nations for nation‐building purposes after two decades of devastating civil war is another case in point. The publicly funded initiative in Angola features significant development in transport infrastructure (national roads, airports), telecommunication networks, and hospitality industries at the cost of approximately $1 billion. South Africans are participating in various initiatives. On 9 March 2009 the Sowetan newspaper reported on a peace mission to East Africa undertaken by local football legends Mark Fish and Phil Masinga, the Department of Sport and Recreation’s Director General, Vernie Petersen, and members of the LOC. This mission was part of the South African government promotional campaign for the 2009 Confederations Cup and the 2010 World Cup. Other partners in the initiative include the LOC and the German Technical Corporation, a Non‐Governmental Organization. This visit was part of the 2010 Peace Africa Caravan aimed at celebrating the fifth anniversary of the peace tour to Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Democratic Republic of the Congo. As part of this peace tour emphasizing football as a tool for peace‐building and social cohesion, a five‐a‐side street tournament for youths took place. The tour, which began in Kigali, Rwanda, on 9 March 2009, was scheduled to end on 28 March in Tanzania.

To conclude, discussions about the 2010 FIFA World Cup need to historicize football’s role as a space for contesting power in the apartheid era and the continuing significance of sport in the country’s post‐apartheid international relations, particularly in regards to other African nations. 2010 can be understood as an effort in cultural diplomacy that reveals how Pan Africanism informs the South African government’s foreign policy principles, if not interests. Of course, ideas about African unity and freedom have deep roots, as the examples of Pixley kaSeme and Julius Nyerere indicated. They inform the cultural philosophy and world‐view of ubuntu (a person is a person through other people) which lies at the heart of the 2010 FIFA World Cup project.

Notes

1. South Africa’s suspension was temporarily lifted in 1963 but reimposed in 1964. South Africa was expelled from FIFA in 1976.

2. Lapchick, ‘Apartheid Sport’, 1–3.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Cited in Darby, ‘Stanley Rous’s “Own Goal”’, 269.

6. Olukoshi, ‘Sports and Foreign Policy’, 466.

7. Ibid.

8. On the history of sport diplomacy see, for example, Beacom, ‘Sport in International Relations’.

9. Author interview with Minister Essop Pahad, Johannesburg, May 16, 2008.

10. Ibid.

11. Nye, Soft Power, x.

12. By way of example, on international opposition to apartheid sport, see Alegi, Laduma!; Black and Nauright, Rugby; Booth, The Race Game; Grundlingh, Odendaal, and Spies, Beyond the Tryline. On the ANC in exile and the role of sport, see Ndlovu, ‘The ANC in Exile’; and Limb, ‘The Anti‐Apartheid Movements’.

13. South African Department of Foreign Affairs, South African Foreign Policy, 8.

14. Pahad, ‘Reflections on the International Scene’, 42.

15. Cornelissen, ‘Scripting the Nation’.

16. Allison and Monnington, ‘Sport, Prestige’. A rare exception is Keys, Globalizing Sport.

17. Mbeki, ‘The Harare Document’, 13.

18. T. Mbeki, ‘Managing the Transition to a Democratic South Africa’. Tribute, February 1991, 22.

19. Asmal et al., Legacy of Freedom. Seme’s speech also available online: http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?doc=ancdocs/history/early/regeneration.html.

20. Asmal et al., Legacy of Freedom.

21. Gevisser, Thabo Mbeki, 322–5.

22. ‘T. Mbeki: 2016 FIFA World Cup South Africa Kick‐ Off Workshop’ www.SA2010.gov.za/en/node/433

23. ‘T. Mbeki: Unveiling of the FIFA World Cup South Africa 2010 emblem’ www.SA2010.gov.za/en/node6

24. Cornelissen, ‘“It’s Africa’s Turn”’.

25. Interview with Pahad.

26. South African Department of Foreign Affairs, Annual Report (2007–08).

27. More details about the Timbuktu project online at: http://www.sum.uio.no/timbuktu/index.html.

28. ‘Maputo Airport Upgrade’. Sowetan, April 15, 2009.

29. ‘Region to Top Up SA’s Power’. Weekender, April 11–12, 2009.

30. ‘ALL launches 2007 as International Year of African Football’ www.SA2010.gov.za/en/node774

31. Joint Communique on the First Session of South Africa‐Mali Joint Commission of Co‐Operation (JCC) held in Pretoria, South Africa from 10–11 August 2004, online at: www.dfa.gov.za/docs/2004/mali0812.htm.

32. ‘Blatter Presents Mandela with a Special FIFA World Cup Trophy’. www.fifa.com.

33. Ibid.

34. Interview with Pahad.

35. Nyerere, ‘The Process of Liberation: Freedom in Four Stages’, 2.

36. Quoted in Guinness World Of Football, DSTV Supersport, South Africa, December 6, 2007.

37. ‘Eto Makes Anti‐racism Protest’. BBC Sport, online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/4751876.stm.

38. I want to thank Peter Alegi for the email about this event.

39. ‘Fifa Boss Blatter Hails Africa’s “Unity in Approach’”. City Press, February 15, 2009; and ‘Blatter Praises United Front!’ Sunday Sun, February 15, 2009.

40. ‘Blatter Praises United Front!’. Sunday Sun, February 15, 2009.

41. Football for peace programmes are described in Armstrong, ‘Talking Up the Game’; and Broere and Van der Drift, Football Afrika!