Ugly reality behind the beautiful World Cup mirage
THE SOUTH African Rugby Union believes it has a compelling case to host the 2023 Rugby World Cup. International Rugby Board officials seem to agree and have named South Africa as the preferred host nation. But Saru’s bid should have set alarm bells ringing.
Its guarantees and promises have been pasted together with opportunism, drawing on the mass euphoria that engulfed the country in 1995, when South Africa last hosted the World Cup, but which proved to be a mirage.
It’s easy to mouth sweet nothings about how rugby’s premier tournament will unite South Africans. It’s easy to promise how it will promote macro-economic growth. And it’s easy to predict a cash bonanza for small businesses among other things. Scratch the surface and a different story emerges.
The 1995 World Cup is said to have united South Africans. Under the baton of Nelson Mandela in a Number 6 Springbok jersey, hundreds of thousands of South Africans chanted “Nelson, Nelson” and cooed to the concept of “a rainbow nation” and a message of reconciliation as the “Springboks” beat New Zealand to become world champions on home soil.
Everyone was giddy with excitement. But it was liking wearing new jeans over soiled underpants.
Normal business quickly resumed. The reasons were simple. For white South Africans, loving Mandela at Ellis Park was one thing. Seeing their black compatriots as equals was a bridge too far too many.
And as for Saru (or the SA Rugby Football Union, as it was known then), most of its promises turned out to be just promises. One of these was to pump R13 million in one year into a general fund for rugby development in black, underdeveloped areas. Another was to employ 6 000 coaches to take rugby to the masses. Then there was “Operation Rugby”, of which the key was to use 40% of the profits of the World Cup to upgrade more than 40 grounds in disadvantaged areas. From the initiatives, said Sarfu, a solid base of black rugby players would be created.
The reality is that professional rugby, transformation targets at club rugby level and acute socio-economic problems such as gangsterism, drugs and drugs turf wars, have virtually destroyed club and schools rugby in townships.
Saru changed tack. It seeks to identify black players at schools level. The best players are given bursaries to attend the traditional (formerly, but predominantly white) rugby-playing schools. At club level, cash-strapped black clubs have their best players poached by former white clubs.
If South Africa is named the host nation for the 2023 tournament, international rugby supporters will need to find other sources to read about a country in which 30 million black people are living in dire poverty, and where the Gini coefficient – the gap between rich and poor – is widest in the world. International supporters will also need other sources to find out about the frightening crime rate. As in 1995, these will be Photoshopped out of the picture.
The sad reality is that the minds of the millions living in poverty will be concentrated on survival rather than up-andunders. The tournament will be a monthlong celebration for the middle-classes, thanks to the billions of rand put up as guarantees by the government. It’s hard not to be angry about who benefits most from this type of state generosity. Let’s be blunt: the biggest beneficiaries are those who prefer to keep their feet and their affections in a different time: in the good old pre-1994 days. You’ll hear the pathetic supporters whenever the national team loses, blaming “quotas” and “transformation” for the side’s woeful performances.
Why should such woeful ignorance be rewarded in this way? Why is the government happy to support the “Springbok”, which over more than a century has been the epitomé of white supremacy? Players and administrators, some of whom were the biggest supporters of apartheid, are lionised in a national rugby museum.
If, as expected, South Africa wins the bid, it is time for anti-racists to make up for their tardiness in not questioning what Saru was putting out to the world in their name. It is time for them to campaign for the removal of the “Springbok” as rugby’s national symbol and the apartheid exhibits in the museum.
Most of all, when the haves fork out their R1 000 or so for a ticket, they must be reminded that more than 30 million South Africans live in abject poverty.