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need for urban renewal in South Africa is not debatable, however what is the manner in which it was implemented in 2010 and leading to then.
1.5 Expected Finding
Going forward, this thesis will conduct more research into marginalized and excluded
communities and peoples within society. To this end there will be a more thorough analysis of particular case studies in South Africa which led to the eviction and forced removal of people under the guise of urban renewal and beautification. Furthermore, there will be a more in depth investigation into who benefitted (corporate & political entities vs. the poor) in
comparison to who was excluded. With ‘job creation’ and ‘entrepreneurship’ often quoted as positives from mega-events, I will test this claim or theory by comparing employment statistics over time. This will determine if the World Cup had any particular or significant impact on these figures. I suspect that the World Cup bidding system and FIFA’s expectations and regulations may perpetuate or even guarantee a marginalization of a massive proportion of the population whilst a select few firms, corporations and individuals stand to benefit exponentially. This study will address the issue and determine to what extent, if any, this is true.
However, many South African’s who were in the country during the 2010 World Cup and made no financial gains out of the event, or even attended a game I still look back on the event with much pride and consider it a relative success….why? By investigating and presenting intangible and non-quantifiable factors and variables, particularly for a country with South Africa’s history, I hope find reasonable justification for why South Africa and other developing nations may want to host mega-events.
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Chapter 2: Analytical Research and Analysis
The following section of this dissertation shall be a more hands-on investigation of the mega-event with a particular focus on the exclusion of the informal sector as well as forced removals and evictions of inhabitants of low cost housing and the homeless peoples. My attention shall be focused here because, firstly, it is the voices and needs of these groups that are most often unheard, ignored or simply exploited by neoliberal capitalist activities which, as I will argue, the FIFA World Cup essentially is. Secondly, unlike in nations like Germany, where the 2006 World Cup was hosted, poor, disenfranchised peoples and communities of this nature often make up the majority of the populace in the developing world. Hence any activity or event, particularly those that claim to be benefactors or champions of the poor needs to be checked and double checked for its social consequences and encouraged to behave in a socially responsible manner.
If developing nations are going to be bidding to host MEs in the future it is important that they and policy-makers know how to protect vulnerable groups. The 2010 edition of the event was indeed informed and underpinned by that 4 years prior in Germany, however, and quite
unfortunately, a direct superimposition of one event on the other can only lead to ‘unforeseen’
discrepancies and social backlash. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the World Cup is organized by 3 major stakeholders, namely; FIFA, the LOC and the national government but a 4th stakeholder in population/society has very little input and, bar entertainment for those that can afford it, receive very little output or benefits either. In essence, commitments and pledges are made without consultation of societal stakeholders and this perhaps explains why FIFA, the government, and elites in general label the event as a success and yet the pulse on the ground can have a different beat.
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The size, popularity and reach of the World Cup globally have made the event far bigger than a simple series of football matches. The prestige and, of course, financial repercussions have made it not only the most coveted prize in sport with regards to competing in and winning, but also to host. If this notion holds true for most countries, even those that are not traditional football strongholds, then this sentiment is certainly most pertinent in the developing world, particularly Africa where the tournament had yet to be hosted. This is because the World Cup has transcended far beyond a mere sporting event, into a global spectacle and has evolved into a massive marketing tool for corporations and nations alike. I have already written at length about the marketing and reimaging strategy adopted by many nations when bidding for and hosting mega-events of this nature. This notion was so pertinent and central to South Africa’s bid that a National Communication Partnership was established between the International Marketing Council of South Africa and the state government. Whilst working in tandem with a host of public relations firms on the continent and around the world, they were tasked with selling an image of Africa as a continent with prosperity and opportunity, devoid of the poverty and instability that so often characterizes images and perceptions of the continent abroad (Jordaan, 2008; Webb, 2010). The fact that Qatar, for example, a country ill-equipped, horribly suited (desert heat) and with very little history or interest in football, bid and won the rights to host the tournament in 2022 is testament to the perception and public relations element encompassed in hosting, because clearly football in and within itself is not the primary
motivation to host for Qataris. Although it is vitally important that the west has more balanced understanding of Africa, which requires the showcase of the ‘other Africa’ which these firms and their campaigns promote, unfortunately what happens with regards to mega-events is that
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the marketing imagery and jargon we use to sell ourselves and convince the world of our hospitality and investment value somehow becomes the only Africa we wish for the world to see. This point is particularly poignant and significant in relation to the World Cup when one considers how and why racialized, classist gentrification in the shape of evictions, removals and exclusions inevitably takes place when any nation, particularly a developing nation embarks on a project where the selling of perceptions, the changing of images or the reshaping of a national brand is a top priority. This type of marketing reduces the complexities and very real struggles of a society like South Africa’s to tasteful, inoffensive images that are fed to the world. The trouble lies in maintaining that fabricated, one sided image when the tourists arrive and this manifests as a pretense that no such poverty or depravation exit, to sweep the scourge of the poor under the proverbial carpet so to speak (Webb, 2010; Bolsmann, 2013). This sequence highlights a neoliberal solution to a neoliberal problem encountered whilst organizing an event in a neoliberal fashion.
With the World Cup being a global event it is highly susceptible to external pressures which can coerce or constrain the state government and organizers of the event. This pressure can be exerted by overt ‘recommendations’ such as the one that lead to the building of the Green Point Stadium as opposed to renovations to the facilities in Athlone or Newlands. A second way in which FIFA and affiliates impose their will is through bills, acts and agreements which, at times, require a change of state & constitutional law, thus essentially undermining the host nation’s sovereignty. By appreciating how the Host City Agreements or the notorious Slums Act operate, for example, we would be better equipped to analyze and understand if, through state legislature, FIFA and the World Cup ‘legally’ discriminate against and marginalize individuals
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and groups that don’t share the same interests. Host City Agreements were, for the most part, utilized by FIFA to get guarantees that local and municipal government will pull no stops in assuring that public and marketable spaces are monopolized by FIFA and that the interests of FIFA and her affiliates are always stringently protected. The result of this is the government’s cooperation in the economic exclusion of all non-affiliates, and this has a drastic effect on the informal sector and the poor. The Slums Act on the other hand, had a mandate of eliminating substandard housing conditions by giving the Housing MEC authority to prescribe a time in which it would be compulsory for municipalities to evict unlawful occupiers of slums as well as all shack dwellers if landowners failed to do so. Both the Agreement and the Act we criticized by civil society as they were deemed to be anti-poor and in contradiction with South Africa’s constitution. The ambition and desire to showcase South Africa as a world class destination at the cost of those that perhaps do not fit in with that definition was of such importance to the organizers that a movement aptly named the World Class Cities for ALL (WCCA) campaign was launched with the purpose of highlighting inequality and uneven distribution of resources and benefits with regards to the World Cup. WCCA, as both a notion and a campaign, shall be explored and further elaborated upon later in this paper, but the golden thread highlights how this World Cup, in rather contradictory fashion, emphasized the notion of world class pan-Africanism and yet the entire event was set against a backdrop of abject poverty and systemic exclusion, whilst FIFA essentially commandeers the government and manipulates the
economic/market space to serve herself and her multinational corporate affiliates. As with many areas of social life that would not usually receive such scrutiny in most parts of the world, football in South Africa is a highly politicized and racialized space. Similarly, although racial
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apartheid is constitutionally abolished, the cities and the spaces that are hosting the World Cup remain structured and shaped by the past, thus creating politicized spaces that inadvertently adopt a more classist apartheid (which inevitably has a racial tinge itself).
2.1 Informal Economy: Marketeers and Street Vendors
Unlike in the developed north, developing nations and emerging economies are likely to have a large proportion of their workforce engaged in informal activities and a noteworthy amount of the economy and fiscal flow will also be concentrated in the informal sector. When government policies and development initiatives do not incorporate or empower poor people and members of the informal sector but focus on capitalist, neoliberal means of development and investment, then the results are inevitably economic exclusion, a lack of upward mobility and an ever
widening gap between rich and poor. It should go without saying that the informal economy will continue to grow exponentially as people seek a means to survive. My point here is to highlight and illustrate the irony and contradiction of the economic development policies adopted and encompassed by FIFA and the LOC when delivering the World Cup to South Africa.
The notion of ‘world class’ is one that underpinned South Africa’s World Cup right from the bid to its post-mortem, and the countries ambition to achieve such a status became dangerous and irresponsible at times. Dealing with and resolving socio-economic problems seems to have lost its place on the agenda and was replaced with an acceptance to simply hide and ignore said socio-economic problems. The irony I refer to here is found in, for example, the fact that in an attempt to present the country as a 5star, world class destination, the policies past and decision taken very often slowed down the countries progress and ensured that the title ‘world class’ is
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not legitimately earned. A World Cup that incorporated, included and embraced Africa’s bustling informal economy would have not only provided a more authentic African experience but would have also encouraged grassroots entrepreneurship and developed the skills, acumen and capital accumulation of those in the informal sector, perhaps even empowering them to enter the formal economy, and thus contribute to the future of a genuinely world class city and country. Instead their exclusion simply reinforced the economic injustices and inequalities that already existed.
Leading to the World Cup, it was estimated that one quarter of South Africa’s labour force was engaged in informal employment. This dissertation has and will continue to point out the intersectionality of ‘race’ and ‘class’ with regards to the World Cup in South Africa but it is imperative not to forget or ignore a third component in ‘gender’. Whilst poor, unskilled,
working-class men mostly engage in jobs requiring some kind of physical exertion (construction, mining, garden work etc.), the informal economy, characterized by hawking, vending and marketeering is predominantly the domain of women. Many of these women are mothers and the solitary breadwinners of large families. From an analytical perspective, one can deduce that, based on the intersectionality of race, class and gender, poor black & coloured (a South African term for mixed-race) women were the most ill-affected and certainly the group that benefitted least from South Africa’s hosting of the Cup. One of the fundamental ways in which FIFA and their sponsors/affiliates guarantees that the World Cup is off-kilter with the needs and desires of the host population is a persistence in unilateral planning and development of the
tournament, as is evidenced by the treatment of a representative body for informal traders.
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traders. In an attempt to seek franchise, or at very least be consulted on world cup
developments that would affect them, SNI approached the governments and municipalities of several major cities including Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban in 2007. Although the group was granted the courtesy of meetings, it was quite clear that FIFA and the organizers had very little intention of taking their calls and cries seriously as unilateral decisions continued to be made (Cottle, 2010). Very often the cities had little choice but to hide behind the fact that FIFA by-laws and policies had temporarily usurped the state policy and decision making processes. Having non-governmental organisations and the multi-national corporations they are in bed with essentially writing policy within the borders of sovereign states is extremely dangerous and illustrates the power, scope and influence FIFA has through the World Cup alone.
In their defense, FIFA exclaimed that informal vendors would have the opportunity to benefit and they supported this claim by offering skills and trading training then offering the trainees exclusive access to exclusion zones. Again, at the surface this appears commendable and the type of development and investment an emerging economy would require, but our excitement is short-lived when we consider some of the factors involved. First and foremost, the amount of informal vendors that were chosen and received this kind of training and endorsement is miniscule and, in fact, almost irrelevant in comparison to the amount of vendors and informal tradespeople that were displaced, removed and put out of business by the World Cup and affiliated developments. Secondly, an investigation of the kind of work and the kinds of product these people were peddling quite quickly exposes the very sinister intentions of FIFA and her MNCs. Venders traditionally trade home made goods/foods or inexpensive consumer goods but they are essentially independent and self-employed. Instead of empowering these people and
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encouraging their businesses to grow, the very select few informal traders that were chosen were trained in a manner that would only subject them to eternal servitude and not to economic independence or growth. Furthermore, those that were trained were not simply allowed to trade their products and pocket the profits as they usually would. Instead, they were licensed and permitted to deal in FIFA affiliated products only. What this translates to is
essentially a system where FIFA and their sponsors have managed to undercut and monopolize the entire market, and have ingeniously found a manner in which to peddle their goods using desperate, vulnerable cheap labour, thus maximizing profits. The very select few who were allowed to peddle their own goods under the auspice that they were not in the product range of any of the sponsors, also found trading not to be as straightforward as they would like. These traders found that they were expected to present and package their goods to a standard
imagined by FIFA, and this usually meant the incurring of unnecessary and unforeseen costs.
FIFA also established price-scales that those vendors had to adhere to, resulting in many vendors inflating their prices and pricing themselves out of the market. In a final show of FIFA’s disregard for poor people in the informal economy, FIFA and the LOC repeatedly identified already existing markets and places with a long history of informal activity and swiftly
repossessed those public spaces as part of the exclusion zones, thus evicting existing tenants and traders. Even more troubling was the manner in which vendors and traders were offered stalls and spaces in prime real estate (often where they had operated for years without such a fee) in return for exorbitant registration and rental fees that low income earners are very unlikely to be able to afford. This series of events again highlights how FIFA World Cup policies
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can lead to the economic exclusion and even exploitation of vulnerable groups in the society.
(Lindell et al, 2010; Bolsmann, 2011; Robbins, 2012)