47 days to go! What's happening in SA?

Just got back from visiting the UK and France where there seems to be a lot of World Cup excitement, but at the same time, the press were talking up the expectation of a racial civil war in South Africa after the murder of right winger Eugene Terre Blanche. That whole episode has gone quiet, but what damage has the press done in terms of the number of foreign fans who have cancelled their visit to SA?

180 000 of 500 000 newly available World Cup tickets were sold during the first six days of the final sales phase, and tickets for well over half the tournament's games are "currently unavailable", which means "sold out for now" but some tickets may still be returned by associations and sponsors. However, in spite of lower than expected sales to foreigners, fans from Africa could still make it a sell-out.

We've had taxi associations barricading Pretoria streets last week protesting their exclusion from World Cup planning - they complain that other modes of transport have been preferentially promoted, like the Rapid Transit Bus System etc. This isn't surprising given the number of taxis involved in road accidents every day here in SA.

The SA Sunday Times revealed a big scandal today - Soccer City, the new stadium in Johannesburg where the final will be held, is being managed by a company whose Black Empowerment qualification appears to include a former African security guard who was promoted to "Human Resources Executive and "given" 26% of the company's shares, but still lives in a poor African township. You have to know the politics in this country to understand the severity of this allegation, but briefly, there is huge pressure from government to promote Africans in business (Black Empowerment), so "white-owned" companies have been known to use unskilled Africans as company directors as "window-dressing" to win government tenders. But for this to happen in such a high profile tender is big news here, if it turns out to be true.

And finally an article in the paper that some homeowners in South Africa have been complaining that accommodation agencies have failed to rent out their houses to World Cup visitors - how awful, poor things! But when you look at the rent they expected to charge, any sympathy is short-lived - can you believe they are asking up to R140 000 (GBP12 000) per day in Clifton, Cape Town. Do these greedy people think that overseas soccer fans are stupid enough to pay that?