2010: The Power of Football

Five stadiums are being renovated in preparation for the World Cup 2010

People & Power investigate the challenges and opportunities faced by South Africa in hosting the 2010 World Cup.

As one of the biggest sporting events in the world, the World Cup has the ability to lift any country’s economy out of decline – but there are mixed opinions on how much of a vehicle for development it will be in South Africa.

Plans are already underway for five new stadia to be built and five others to be renovated. New hotels and a high-speed rail link in Johannesburg promise to attract tourists and make them feel safer in what has been called the world’s most dangerous city.

The Gautrain is now the biggest rail project under construction in the world

But will the economic benefits really be felt across the country?

In Johannesburg, filmmaker Oliver Steeds comes across families who have been ordered to evacuate their homes at short notice to make way for construction of the new Gautrain rail link. And in the slum town of Kayelitshe, outside of Cape Town, soccer fans speak of robbing tourists when they come – out of sheer desperation for money and food.
 
The World Cup 2010 will be hosted twenty years after Nelson Mandela was released from prison and spoke to 100,000 people from a football stadium in Soweto of a new South Africa. Can the next one bring reconciliation, unity and identity to the rainbow nation?

Watch Part One here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKykJ-YsKB4

Watch Part Two here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdL6agg7NN4

This episode of People & Power aired from Sunday October 7, 2007 at the following times GMT:
Sunday: 14:30
Monday: 01:30, 13.30
Tuesday: 06:30, 20.30

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