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'It's Africa's turn!' The narratives andlegitimations surrounding the Moroccanand South African bids for the 2006and 2010 FIFA finalsScarlett CornelissenPublished online: 25 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: Scarlett Cornelissen (2004) 'It's Africa's turn!' The narratives and legitimationssurrounding the Moroccan and South African bids for the 2006 and 2010 FIFA finals, Third WorldQuarterly, 25:7, 1293-1309, DOI: 10.1080/014365904200281285

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Third World Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 7, pp. 1293–1309, 2004

‘It’s Africa’s turn!’ The narrativesand legitimations surrounding theMoroccan and South African bids forthe 2006 and 2010 FIFA finals

SCARLETT CORNELISSEN

ABSTRACT African countries are increasingly engaging in bidding wars to hostsport mega-events. To date, however, not much analysis has been done ofAfrican countries’ involvement in the growing global mega-events enterprise.Little is also known of the broader political character and consequences ofevents and bid campaigns in the international system. This article investigatesthese aspects through a comparative analysis of the bid processes of SouthAfrica and Morocco for the 2006 and 2010 Soccer World Cup. It explores theinternal (domestic) and external (international) elements of their legitimatingnarratives and promotional rhetoric and how these played out in their inter-national relations. Both countries made extensive use of an ideological andemotive posturing of ‘Africa’. Against the background of the generally tenuousposition the continent occupies in the wider international system, and of itsoverwhelmingly negative representation, the two countries’ replication of neo-colonial ties and use of postcolonial rhetoric both aided and hampered their bidcampaigns. Overall, competitions to host mega-events occur on an unequal basiswhich, for African countries, is worsened by very unfavourable positioning in theinternational arena.

The economic potentials of sport hallmark or mega-events are well documented.1

They are widely viewed as opportunities for hosts to showcase themselves to aninternational audience2 and, potentially, to attract investors and tourists. Over theyears mega-events have come to be typified by the presence of large global andhighly mobile players who are involved in publicity, marketing, event organis-ing, and the financial underwriting of sport events.

Given these features, it is today more and more relevant to speak of a sportmega-events market or industry that is distinguished by two factors. First, thesheer magnitude and international scale of capital flows that characterise suchevents, and often dominance by certain global corporations (for instance insponsorship and broadcasting rights). Second, the fact that, in pursuit of thepurported economic benefits and capital tied to mega-events, industrialised and

Scarlett Cornelissen is in the Department of Political Science, University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag X1,Matieland 7602, South Africa. Email: sc3@sun.ac.za.

ISSN 0143-6597 print/ISSN 1360-2241 online/04/071293-17 © 2004 Third World QuarterlyDOI: 10.1080/014365904200281285 1293

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developing countries are increasingly engaging in contests to host them. In brief,sport mega-events are rapidly developing into one aspect of the global capitaliststructure which, with the enhanced focus on improving international competi-tiveness and comparative advantage, increasingly appeals to countries as devel-opmental targets (see Black and van der Westhuizen in this issue). Underlyingthis dynamic is a strong belief that a significant change in the geography ofinternational capitalism over the past three or so decades has rendered economicactivities such as manufacturing of less importance in national wealth creation,and necessitated a shift to ‘new’ growth sectors such as tourism, events or sport.3

Place promotion, destination profiling and imaging, with the aim of luringtourists and investors, are important aspects of this.4

These trends also apply increasingly to African countries, which over the pastfew years have to a greater extent disposed themselves to participate in themega-events enterprise. South Africa has emerged as a particularly virile eventscampaigner, coupling a more aggressive international self-projection based onthe development of a particular image and the expansion of its tourism sectorwith a policy of actively pursuing the hosting of different sport (and other)mega-events.5 While the recent bid for the 2010 Soccer World Cup saw the entryof the largest number of African contenders yet for an event of first-ordermagnitude, there has been a marked increase in African activism in pursuit ofmajor events since the late 1980s. What is interesting is that African countriesare demonstrating a high level of willingness to invest the (often hefty) volumesof resources required for their bid campaigns.

Clearly, many African governments are vigorously seeking to engage in—and,in particular, draw the professed economic benefits from—such events. Despitethis, little research to date has been carried out on African involvement in themega-events market, the factors and motivations that underlie it, and theirconsequences and implications.

A second deficiency in current mega-events research concerns the broaderpolitical character and consequences of such events in the international system.Mega-events are an increasingly important facet of international engagement,with related effects on states’ interactions with one another. Sport mega-eventsare well recognised for their political usages: analyses abound regarding howauthorities (urban, regional or national) attempt to use events to foster loyalty orlegitimacy, to project certain messages to the outside world, or to attain otherwider policy objectives.6 Events, in other words, are increasingly developing intoa political commodity for countries. This carries a number of internal andinternational contingencies. Domestically, elites must engage in legitimisingexercises to gain the necessary level of support to carry bids forward.7 Exter-nally, bid processes are generally characterised by extensive state bargaining,leveraging and negotiating that draw from established political and economic tiesor loyalties. In both instances the construction of legitimating narratives is acentral feature of bid promoters’ interaction with their domestic and internationaltarget audiences.8 Often the political economy and power disparities involved insuch state leveraging have direct impacts on bid outcomes.9

Nevertheless, to date very little research has been conducted on the inter-national relations of mega-events or bids to host such events, ie on how states

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engage with each other, and on the broad political processes that surround thecompetition, the ideologies that underlie it, and the consequences of it. This canbe attributed to the generally glib treatment sport is given in the discipline ofInternational Relations. Yet much can be learned about governmental/eliteagents’ political objectives and directions by looking at their stated aims andrationales for hosting mega-events, and at the narratives, legitimations andpromotional rhetoric that they employ. Domestically such narratives can carrysignificant consequences. The nature and effects of countries’ external promotiondrives can also provide useful insights into aspects related to wider internationalrelations.

In an attempt to address these gaps in existing research, this paper analysesand compares the bid processes of two African states—Morocco and SouthAfrica—for the Soccer World Cup, looking specifically at the political facets andinternal and external dynamics of the competition between the two countries. Atthe end of the 1990s both South Africa and Morocco put forth bids to host theInternational Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) Soccer World Cup, firstfor the 2006 finals and, when these bids failed, for the 2010 event. Comparisonof their bid processes reveals interesting insights into the types of politicalengagement that both countries fostered or used in support of their bids, and howthis engagement affected their international relations.

Of particular significance are the narratives (stories, ideologies and claims)and political legitimations that surrounded the bidding processes, and the basisof the competition between the two: both were vying to be the first African hostof a large-scale, first-order sports event and both presented themselves as the‘gateway to Africa’. In this regard the claims of both countries were built uponparticular, but contending, conceptions of African identity. This raises at leastfour interesting questions. First, what were the main economic and politicalobjectives of the respective bids, and what narratives were created in theirsupport? Also, who were the targets? Second, how were these contendingnarratives used by the countries in their bid processes against one another andhow did this play out in international and multilateral forums? Finally, whatlessons does the bid competition provide regarding developing countries’ con-duct surrounding mega-events, and the contingent effects of this on internationalrelations?

Four central arguments are posed. First, it is argued that the contest betweenthe two countries revolved around and invoked neocolonial and in certaininstances postcolonial narratives and constructions aimed at specific externalaudiences. Second, and relatedly, it is argued that key elements of Africa’sinternational relations were replicated in the rival bids. Drawing from a richtradition of postcolonial studies, the position taken in this article is that mannersof representation (through language, images and texts) have an importantconnection to political and power relations between various entities.10 Postcolo-nial discourse draws attention to the fact that colonial ties between developedand developing countries have significantly shaped and continue to affect theway in which the latter are viewed and represented by the former. This filtersthrough into the continued negative positioning of the developing world in theinternational system.11

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Third, it is argued that postcolonial discourse, which seeks to raise awarenessof and challenge colonial (ie subjugating) depictions of the developing world,12

is a particularly useful framework in which to analyse the lopsided nature of thegrowing sports mega-events industry, with competition between developed anddeveloping states often taking place on an uneven basis.13 The pervasive beliefin, and search for, international competitiveness that is common to most publicpolicies masks the very unequal foundation on which international competitionfor global capital occurs, determined by differential infrastructure, access andcapacity. Since competition surrounding sports mega-events is so dependent onprojecting certain images and representations, in crafting their bids developingcountries must engage with and transcend fixed and often very negative repre-sentations (see also Dimeo and Kay in this issue). For developing countries,therefore, the processes by which they construct their bids, the ways in whichthese bids are received by the Western world, and the various effects that thismight have are significantly influenced by their position in the world. In termsof the African countries’ bids for the FIFA finals, many of the processes andoutcomes surrounding them can be understood when placed against the backdropof the continent’s position in the wider international system.

Stemming from this, the fourth argument is that, quite consciously, both SouthAfrica and Morocco employed arguments in their narratives and claims and builton political relationships that may be characterised as neocolonial (eg throughrelying mainly on the political and often economic succour of former colonialpowers), while at the same time making use of postcolonial rhetoric. This hada number of distinct consequences and implications.

The first part of the paper reviews both South Africa’s and Morocco’s bidprocesses over the six-year period (1998–2004) that they were engaged incompetition for the World Cup finals. This part highlights the main events andkey aspects that characterised and shaped the bid processes and outcomes. Thesecond part of the paper analyses thematically the rivalry between the two bidcontenders in terms of the narratives and constructions they employed and theirsubsequent impacts, as well as the international relations that typified theircontest.

Overview

In 1998, at the Africa Cup of Nations final in Burkina Faso, the South AfricanFootball Association (SAFA) indicated its intent to launch a bid to host the 2006FIFA Soccer World Cup finals. This followed in the wake of South Africa’ssuccessful hosting of the Rugby World Cup in 1995 and the Africa Cup ofNations in 1996. The latter two events were distinguished by the fact that SouthAfrica was victorious in both. Since both came at a particularly pivotal momentin the reconciliation and nation-building efforts of the post-apartheid govern-ment, these two events resonated strongly in the domestic sphere. SAFA’sannouncement of its aim to host the Soccer World Cup finals nonetheless cameas a surprise, given that this event is the largest of its kind and would requirea level of investment far beyond that of events previously hosted by the country.In addition, coming so soon after the country’s failed bid for the Olympic Games

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in 2004 and the deflation in popular enthusiasm for events that this had led to,14

a momentous level of input would be necessary from the promoters of the soccerbid to muster adequate domestic support.

Yet, in line with common assertions of the potency of sport to fostercohesiveness,15 it is clear that the announcement, and particularly the SouthAfrican cabinet’s subsequent approval of the bid attempt, were also strategicallylinked to the central government’s larger nation-building project. Althoughgovernment policies and increased social interaction have attenuated the impactthat apartheid has had on the social sphere, sport is still marked by far-reachingracial divisions. Soccer has traditionally been seen as a ‘black sport’, whilerugby and cricket, the two other main sporting disciplines in South Africa, havetraditionally been played predominantly by whites. Thus, despite the fact thatsoccer does not have the extensive financial underpinning of rugby and cricket,it is more widely played and supported. More importantly, soccer has a powerfulpopular appeal in South Africa. This factor endows it with an important politicalpotency. The attraction that the soccer bid held for South Africa’s authoritieswas that, in contrast to the Olympic bid, which was from the outset a processpredominantly driven by a wealthy (white) constituency whose influencestemmed from business,16 the soccer bid would be led by the ‘historicallydispossessed’ in South African society. As such the bid had an immediaterhetorical advantage vis-a-vis the Olympic bid.

The projected economic impact of the event (77 400 permanent jobs, anincome that would constitute 2% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product, andadditional tax income of roughly US$550 million) was a further basis aroundwhich the bid promoters sought to mobilise support. In a country where it isestimated that more than 40% of the population is unemployed, the forecastemployment creation potential was a key rhetorical argument, used with somedegree of success by the South African Bid Committee.17

In addition, although slow to start, by the end of the first bid cycle the BidCommittee had garnered a significant degree of support from some of thecountry’s largest corporations. This was an important shift from the bid for the2004 Olympics, when initial private sector patronage for the bid was scant.18 Thereason for the shift lay in the fact that, despite the failure of the Olympic Gamesbid, a learning curve had been established whereby corporations evidenced agreater willingness to provide financial underwriting.

An important element of the 2006 bid was its ‘diffusionist’ nature. In a furtherattempt to maximise support from key political constituencies within SAFA, andin the general population more broadly, the Bid Committee undertook to involveseveral cities and stadiums in the bid process. With the promise of spreading theprojected impacts and benefits of the event as widely as possible, the BidCommittee aimed to ‘win the hearts and minds of the people’ as a first step.19

In sum, the bid proposed to draw in nine cities, to which some level of newinfrastructural development was tied. In an effort to rationalise costs, however,the Bid Committee opted to use a number of existing rugby stadiums.20

One of the most significant qualities of the bid was its pan-Africanist basis,characterised by its logo and slogan: ‘It’s Africa’s Turn!’ The logo was gearedto convey to the remainder of the world the central idea that Africa, a large

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football region, had never had the opportunity to host a spectacle of thismagnitude. The pan-Africanist thrust, moreover, was vitally aimed at gatheringas much African support for South Africa’s bid as possible.

From an early stage, however, this proved to be a contentious and difficultelement of the South African bid. The reason was the other African candidature,that of Morocco. Following two earlier failed bids (for the 1994 and 1998 finals),Morocco entered its third bid for the Soccer World Cup finals for 2006. Becausea much stronger sentiment had arisen in FIFA in support of an Africa-hostedfinals (notably through the vocalisations of Joseph Blatter, president of FIFA),Morocco was a strong rival to the South African bid. The dual Africancandidature, however, provided difficulties for the Confederation of AfricanFootball (CAF), and for African support more generally. Until the final roundsof voting in 2000 CAF had refused to endorse either of the African bids. Thepolitical rift regarding the dual candidacy stemmed from CAF’s decision in 1998to support Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) president, LennartJohannsson, for the FIFA presidency. The latter was, however, a knownsupporter of Germany’s bid for the 2006 finals. Since his rival, Joseph Blatter,volubly and publicly declared his desire for an African-hosted finals, the SouthAfrican Bid Committee opted to support Blatter, who was eventually voted in asFIFA president with many African votes. The dual candidacy continued topartition the African vote along established political faultlines and had asignificant impact on the eventual outcome of the bid processes.

Morocco’s bid had very similar foundations to that of South Africa. Ideolog-ically, the country was motivated by a strong desire to be the first African hostof the event, and through this to garner enhanced international status. Econom-ically, it sought to gain access to the lucrative spin-offs of the event, particularlyas they would affect the country’s tourism sector. Morocco is the third largestmarket in terms of international tourist arrivals in Africa (after South Africa andTunisia). The particular nature of the country’s tourist market is highlysignificant, with medium-haul tourist arrivals from Western Europe—predomi-nantly from France (the former colonial occupier) and Spain (which has hadstrong imperial and political connections to the country)—making up a verylarge component, indeed 80% of the country’s tourism sector.21 However, aseries of bomb blasts in adjacent Egypt towards the end of the 1990s, and morerecently international terror threats, were contributing to a broader climate ofinsecurity in the North African region, which affected Morocco’s tourismindustry significantly. Tourism had come to be one of the most importanteconomic activities in Morocco which, with an unemployment rate of close to20% and up to half the population illiterate, is among the poorest countries inthe Maghreb region.22 Morocco thus looked towards the hosting of the SoccerWorld Cup as something that would provide impetus to a vital, albeit contractingsector.

Two further factors account for Morocco’s fervent history of campaigning tohost the FIFA finals. The first stems from a delicate domestic political situation.The Moroccan government has for a long time sought to regulate an ethnicallydiverse and divided society and the political challenges this has given rise to,often through the use of repressive measures. In recent years moves to reform

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and liberalise have also included attempts to forge greater cohesiveness in thecountry.23 The country’s bids for the World Cups could be seen as one strategyin support of this objective.

The second factor relates to the issue of the Western Sahara region and thevarious political and foreign policy entanglements that surround it. Morocco’soccupation of the region since 1975, its harsh treatment of domestic supportersof the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and its attempts to repressthe rebel Polisario movement that represents the Saharawi people, have attractedmuch diplomatic chastisement. Although some progress has been made onnegotiating a settlement, the country is keen to gain some international approval.Hosting a World Cup, it is probably believed, would produce such an outcome.Paradoxically, as is discussed below, the Western Sahara issue presentedsignificant problems for Morocco in its bid campaigns, as its withdrawal fromthe Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union) in 1982 upon thisbody’s recognition of the SADR meant that the country could not rely on its bidreceiving diplomatic endorsement from the continental African body.

Perhaps as a direct consequence of this the Moroccan authorities made muchof their proximity to Europe in their bid campaign. Such proximity is more thangeographical—it is also tied to the close historical and cultural linkages that thecountry shares with the European continent. These ties constituted an importantelement of the legitimating narratives used by Morocco in its bid process, asexplored in more detail in the thematic analysis below.

Deliberations on the candidature for the hosting rights for the 2006 finals tookplace in mid-2000. The final voting was conducted by FIFA’s 24-personexecutive committee, drawn from its six confederations.24 The eventual outcomeof the voting procedures saw Germany selected as host ahead of South Africa,despite strong support for the latter by the FIFA president. The manner in whichvoting was organised, around the confederal structure of FIFA, and the opportu-nities such voting blocs created for issues such as personal loyalties and otherforms of direct and indirect political pressures (such as ‘gifts’, or trade agree-ments) to sway or influence outcomes is well recognised.25 Indeed, it was widelyspeculated afterwards that hostility towards Blatter determined the outcome ofthe vote.26 Significantly, a direct consequence of the voting process was anattempt to attenuate the influence of such factors in FIFA’s voting proceduresand the decision taken by the body that the 2010 finals would commence a newrotation system where hosts would circulate among the six confederations. In2002 the FIFA executive announced its decision that the African region wouldbe the first to benefit from the new system.

Given that this decision developed out of South Africa’s misfortune during its2006 campaign, it could perhaps be seen as an early diplomatic triumph for thecountry. It was thus understandable when South Africa renewed its bid for the2010 finals with a sense of vigour, along with Morocco and, initially, four otherAfrican contenders (Egypt, Libya, Nigeria and Tunisia. Nigeria withdrew by theend of 2003).

In terms of content, the South African and Moroccan bids underwent somechanges from their 2006 proposals. South Africa extended its number ofstadiums to 11, including a number of cities or towns which, given their

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geographical and demographic characteristics, were generally perceived to be outof the main soccer financing circuit in the country.27 For its part Morocco reframedits bid for the 2010 finals around a national development strategy, Vision 2010,that set out to define an economic stimulus programme for the country, much ofit contingent on the expected spin-offs from hosting the 2010 tournament.Towards this goal the country proposed spending up to US$500 million for theconstruction of eight new stadiums and the refurbishment of four existing ones(in Fez, Casablanca, Rabat and Oujda). It has been noted by FIFA that the lackof readily available stadiums was a consistent weakness in Morocco’s previousbid attempts.28 Reinforcing the argument that developing countries’ bid campaignsare significantly influenced by the wider political economy of their ties withWestern powers was the fact that a significant portion of the Moroccan investmentwas to be carried by Spanish and French-owned or -backed companies.29

In May 2004, two weeks before the final announcement of the winning bid,the FIFA technical committee released its report on the capability of contendingcountries to host the event. Given that a country’s ability to meet FIFA’s technicalrequirements is purported to be the decisive criterion in the final voting rounds,this report is generally taken as an authoritative indicator of which country is likelyto be awarded the event. For this reason it was significant that, in the report, SouthAfrica was the only country to be designated as having the potential to host anexcellent finals. Egypt was evaluated to have the capability, and Morocco thepotential of organising a very good World Cup. The difference in emphasis is morethan semantic—the choice of wording is aimed at conveying not only anassessment of the contending countries’ capacity, but also creates a hierarchy thatis an important portent of probable outcomes in the voting sessions. Tunisia wasappraised to have the potential to organise a good finals, while Libya’s capabilitywas not assessed very highly because of a lack of experience, inadequateinfrastructure and insufficient available time to organise the event.30

Shortly before the announcement of the winning candidate on 15 May 2004,Tunisia and Libya, which had aimed to host the event jointly but, on theexperience of the co-hosted 2002 finals in Japan and South Korea, were deniedthis option by FIFA, withdrew their candidacy. On the day of the final round ofvoting there were therefore only three contenders. The announcement saw therights to host the tournament awarded to South Africa, with 14 of the 24 votes.Morocco had secured the remaining 10 votes. To the surprise of many Egypt hadnot received a single vote.

For South Africa, much was vested in this contest. The country had seen a highlevel of popular build-up in the weeks preceding the final announcement and agreat degree of mobilisation by high-ranking SAFA officials. There was a clearpolitical character to the build-up. First, South Africa’s leaders were intent oncoupling the country’s bid campaign to the celebration of its first decade ofdemocracy. The announcement by the FIFA executive committee followed soonafter the country’s third democratic elections held in April 2004, in which theincumbent African National Congress (ANC) won more than 68% of the ballot.It was a key endorsement for South African president, Thabo Mbeki, successorto Nelson Mandela, that his re-election occurred with a persuasive portion of theregistered vote.31

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Second, a great deal of emphasis was placed on the potential impacts winningthe World Cup would have on ameliorating some of South Africa’s most severedomestic problems. A major national HIV/AIDS awareness campaign, forexample, that had as its slogan, ‘2010: love to be there’ is characteristic of howthe World Cup was used positively to frame and address those issues that wereof greatest concern to South Africa’s populace in an attempt to elicit as high alevel of support for the bid as possible.

Thus, for the country’s sport and political leaders much was leveraged onbeing awarded the event. Sport has been an important ideological instrument inpost-apartheid South Africa. However, since the international successes of themid to late 1990s, South Africa’s major sport teams have suffered a series ofserious and often humiliating defeats in large contests. For example, despitegaining much from staging a successful Cricket World Cup in 2003, thepremature exit from the tournament by the South African team deflated much ofthe popular support for the event in the country. During the Rugby World Cupheld in Australia later that year the South African team failed to reach the laterstages of the competition. More seriously, the event was followed by allegationsthat the team’s pre-tournament preparation had involved a training camp wheresome harsh and degrading methods were used. In a country where sport infusesand plays a significant role in the national psyche, Camp Staaldraad evokedmuch domestic criticism for having embarrassed the country. It also led to theresignation of the majority of senior administrative officials from the nationalrugby governing board. Similarly, for South Africa’s soccer team, failure toperform to expectations in the 2004 Africa Cup of Nations (where the teamfailed to reach the second stage of the tournament) drew little sympathy from ausually loyal domestic support base.

Given this, South Africa’s political leaders keenly pursued a positive outcomefor the 2010 World Cup bid. The great political value that was attached to thebid was reflected in the make-up of the delegation that travelled to FIFA’s finalvoting rounds in Zurich. The Bid Committee was accompanied by SouthAfrica’s president and deputy-president and, significantly, by former presidentsNelson Mandela and Frederik de Klerk, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, thelatter three all former Nobel Peace Prize Winners. The presence of three wellrespected and internationally known figures was clearly aimed at signifying theweightiness of the event for South Africa, and was geared at securing maximalsupport from the FIFA committee.32

A number of themes emerge from the contest between South Africa andMorocco and the various narratives each employed over the six-year bidcontestation period. These themes centre on particular constructions regardingAfrica, the usages of such constructions, the audiences to whom such narrativeswere targeted, and the ways in which the countries rallied political and economicalliances in the international arena to bolster their bids.

Thematic analysis: casting Africa as the dispossessed

Most strikingly, ‘Africa’ was the cornerstone of both South Africa’s andMorocco’s bids for the 2006 and 2010 football finals. The contest for 2006 was

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framed around quite specific portrayals of the African continent that were gearedto compel empathic support from the developed world that FIFA essentiallyrepresented.

In the first instance, it is significant that both countries depicted themselves asthe ‘gateway to Africa’ and as true African representatives. In pure geographicalterms this may be true; however, the political implication of these claims isimportant. Indeed, these claims must be understood against the backdrop of thecontinent’s tenuous economic and political position in the international system,the historical development of this position, and the predominant images andideas related to Africa that shape the continent’s ties with the rest of the world.Postcolonial discourse draws attention to the fact that prevailing Westernportrayals of the African continent tend to depict its environment, landscape andpeoples in a certain way. Largely stemming from rationalisations that sought tolegitimate the colonial conquest, Africa is consistently represented as wild,exotic, subordinate, barbaric, infantile and open for the simultaneous explorationand civilising force of Westerners.33 In essence, it is placed as ‘the archetypalother’ against which the Western world juxtaposes and favourably evaluatesitself.34

From a postcolonial perspective such representations infuse all aspects of theWestern world’s engagement with the African continent—economic, politicaland social—and persistently shape its international relations. According to Dunn,in academic scholarship on statehood, sovereignty and state interaction, theAfrican state is without fail represented in negative terms.35

In the contemporary era, with the increased commodification of culture,leisure and sport, and the growing international struggle for the economic goodsand capital tied to these, pervasive negative depictions have far-reaching conse-quences for African countries. While there has been increasingly sophisticatedtheorisation about the global political economy, and the impacts and opportuni-ties of cultural flows such as sport36, it is largely under-acknowledged thatdeveloping countries in general, and perhaps African countries more specifically,tend to occupy less favourable positions in global bidding competitions. Nega-tive perceptions and portrayals have direct impacts with regard to the continent’saccess to and allure for global capital.

Thus the fact that both South Africa and Morocco based a significantcomponent of their bid for 2006 on a particular characterisation of Africa isimportant. First and foremost, both countries’ campaigns consisted of an emotiveframing of their bids,37 not only highlighting their infrastructural and footballadvantages vis-a-vis the other contenders, but also projecting an image of Africaas somewhere that has long been neglected by the Western world and which, asrecompense, should be awarded the finals. This projection paradoxically bothchallenged and reinforced predominant conceptions of the marginalisation of theAfrican continent. This paradox (or ‘dualling’) also carries through in thecountries’ engagement with FIFA, as football’s governing body. Darby notesthat FIFA is not uncommonly regarded as an instrument of neocolonial domi-nation by African and other non-European football associations and that tiesbetween Africa and FIFA are often characterised by ambivalence and warinesson the part of Africans.38

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This ambivalence is expressed in Mbeki’s response to the outcome of the2006 vote: ‘When will some in Europe be ready to accept that Africa is part ofthe global human family and not an irrelevant appendage whose marginalisationis, to some in developed Europe an acceptable outcome?’39 Indeed, to Mbeki, the‘globalisation of apartheid’ accounted for the voting results.

Thabo Mbeki’s statement is significant in the light of his strong promotion ofan ‘African Renaissance’ and of his activism in helping to found the NewPartnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), currently taking shape underthe aegis of the African Union. NEPAD has been designed as an economic andpolitical programme to bring about the elevation of the African continent, basedon the promotion of democratisation and good governance. In its campaign forthe 2006 finals South Africa strongly played on the potential bolstering effectthat hosting the World Cup finals in Africa would provide to the continent’srevival. In this it placed itself as a successfully democratising African country,and hence a worthy candidate. This was reflected in the following argumentmade by the Bid Committee:

awarding the Word Cup to South Africa will advance football’s globalisation andenhance FIFA’s position as the pre-eminent sports organisation in the world. ASouth African World Cup can further the FIFA Executive’s global statesmanship,as supporters of South Africa’s peaceful transition to democracy.40

This was a clear strategic manoeuvre aimed at both enticing and compellingFIFA to award the tournament to South Africa. This strategy on the part of theBid Committee, as argued by one observer, was based on the contention that:

if South Africa is expected to take the lead in all aspects of public life, politicallyand socio-economically, the world must provide the necessary incentives andinvestment—and being allowed to host the World Cup is one such incentive41

The rationale, and key trump card, underlying the Bid Committee’s argumentswas that the World Cup was a means of giving impetus to the economic andpolitical regeneration of the African continent, and that South Africa, with itsadvanced position compared with much of the continent, was the optimalmedium. The South African bid made an emotive argument that the footballWorld Cup had never been hosted in Africa and that, if the internationalcommunity were to act upon its promises of furthering the ‘African Renais-sance’, the World Cup would be the most apt vehicle. This was encapsulated inthe initial slogan of the South African bid: ‘It’s Africa’s Turn!’

South Africa persisted with this theme for its 2010 campaign. The followingstatement by President Thabo Mbeki to the FIFA executive committee, on theeve of the final round of voting, offers insight:

This is an African journey of hope—hope that, in time, we will arrive at a futurewhen our continent will be free of wars, refugees and displaced people, free oftyranny, of racial, ethnic and religious divisions and conflicts, of hunger and theaccumulated weight of centuries of the denial of our human dignity…Nothing couldever serve to energise our people to work for their and Africa’s upliftment morethan to integrate among the tasks of our Second Decade of Democracy and theAfrican Renaissance our successful hosting of the 2010 Soccer World Cup.42

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Like South Africa’s, the Moroccan bid had a forceful emotive tone and alsostrongly rested on the invocation of an African identity. Like the South Africanbid, the Moroccan bid also depended on the support of other African countries,and a considerable component of Morocco’s legitimation campaign was directedat the vote-carrying African members of FIFA. The president of the MoroccanBid Committee for the 2006 campaign, Driss Benhima, stated for instance:

We want to win the backing of African countries first, because our candidacy ismade in the name of Africa.43

For all its contestations, however, Morocco occupied a delicate geographical andpolitical position within the African continent and in its relationship with theCAF that effectively negated the impact of its ideological use of ‘Africa’. First,it had to contend with many sub-Saharan African countries (among them keyCAF members) questioning whether Morocco could truly claim to be ‘African’.This question is the legacy of a long-standing rift between North and sub-Saha-ran African states over what ‘true Africa’ really is. It is a rift that often translatesinto tensions in diplomatic forums such as the African Union. The question wasthus an element that the South African campaign sought to exploit, although inmany similar ways and for comparable reasons, South Africa’s ‘African’ identityis also one that is disputed by other continental neighbours. This disputationarises because of South Africa’s own ambivalent international representation ofitself, for instance in tourism or other promotional material.44

Given that Morocco could not use the same strategy or kind of normativepostulating as South Africa, the former placed a great deal of emphasis on itsAfrican sport and footballing credentials. For example, for its 2010 campaign itproclaimed that it was the first African country to have entered the World Cupbid contest (for 1994) and to have reached the final phases of a World Cuptournament (in the 1986 Mexico finals).

Elaborate political and economic transactions with other African countries,however, still characterised both campaigns. For the 2006 competition, the factthat the CAF endorsed neither country’s bid above the other gave each countrythe added challenge of swaying as many African states as possible in its favour.In the months before the selection, the Moroccan Bid Committee toured 15African countries in an attempt to garner support. Most notable of the countriesvisited were Tunisia, Mali and Botswana, whose CAF representatives were alsomembers of FIFA’s executive committee.45 Lobbying for the bid also extendedinto inter-governmental relations. During January 2000, for instance, The Gam-bia’s foreign minister visited Morocco’s King Mohammed VI to discuss econ-omic and technological co-operation between the two countries, in exchange forthe guarantee of The Gambia’s backing of Morocco’s World Cup bid.

A second, more serious challenge to Morocco’s Africa claim was the coun-try’s non-membership of the OAU/AU, and the fact that its bid could not receivepolitical endorsement from that body while South Africa’s could. This had directimplications for bilateral relations between Morocco and South Africa. Keen toavoid a worsening of tensions between the two over South African pressure forthe recognition of the SADR, and afraid that an OAU/AU endorsement of SouthAfrica ahead of Morocco could lead to severe political consequences that would

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reverberate far beyond the World Cup, Pretoria merely sought an acknowledge-ment of its bid from the continental organisation.

A further source of friction was the prominent role that South Africa hassought to fashion for itself on the continent through its championing of anAfrican Renaissance and of NEPAD. It is not irrelevant, for instance, thatMorocco has purposefully supported rival political programmes that have beenput forth by other African countries, such as Senegal’s Omega Plan. The fact thatAlgeria, a supporter of the Polisario movement, was an active initial sponsor ofNEPAD further deterred Morocco from supporting the programme.46 In otherwords, larger political dynamics and tensions on the African continent had asignificant influence on the two countries’ bid processes, seemingly tilting thebalance in South Africa’s favour.

However, because Morocco lay on the cusp of Europe and the Middle East,it was favoured by geography. Thanks to its extensive historical, cultural,economic and social linkages with both regions, and the fact that they presentedtwo additional voting blocs, Morocco had a key incentive to address both theseregions in its narratives. With regard to Europe the Moroccan bid argued thatMorocco was ‘at the crossroads of continents and civilizations’, and referred tothe ‘privileged ties binding Morocco and Europe’.47 The bid also emphasised thecountry’s geographical proximity to Europe, and the fact that this would reducetransport costs for football visitors who would be drawn mainly from thatcontinent. With regard to the Middle East Morocco solicited backing with theargument that it was ‘time [that] an Arab state hosted the world soccer cup’.48

By the end of the final phases of the 2010 contest, however, Morocco’sgeographical positioning had gained an additional significance that filteredthrough to its international relations. Amid rising concerns over the effects ofinternational terrorism and counter-terror campaigns, Morocco’s placement as anArab country that has experienced terrorist attacks itself both hampered andbolstered its World Cup bid. In the latter stages of the contest the potentialpolitical impact of the international campaign against terrorism manifested itselfwhen, in the wake of the bombings in Madrid in March 2004 (in whichMoroccan nationals were allegedly involved), the Spanish government affirmedits support for the Moroccan bid. It was a forthright statement on the part of theSpanish that effectively rendered the hosting of the World Cup a globalnormative responsibility—an aspect of ‘high politics’—and a far cry from thefrivolity that International Relations generally accords sports.

This lent Morocco prominence as a professed strategic role player in the widerinternational campaign against terrorism. For South Africa, a further reason forconcern was the fact that France, another important international actor, alsosignalled its support for Morocco versus any of the other African bidders.

Spain’s and France’s patronage of the Moroccan bid should be seen in thecontext of the close imperial and political involvement of these two countrieswith Morocco and the extensive penetration of French and Spanish firms in theMoroccan economy. Even so, developments surrounding the international cam-paign against terrorism and South Africa’s counter-narrative—that its advantagevis-a-vis its competitor stemmed from its peaceful character—recast the contestfor 2010 in a distinctly new way: one where a successful bid outcome revolvedaround a given country’s ability to convince the international community of its

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statesmanship in helping to address the world’s problems. In this regard it ishighly significant that one of Joseph Blatter’s immediate responses to SouthAfrica being awarded the 2010 finals was, ‘what greater testimony to what SouthAfrica had achieved with its peaceful transition than the presence of three NobelLaureates for peace. South Africa is a model for the rest of the world.’49 Itseems, therefore, that the particular narratives used and framed by the SouthAfrican bid committee bore greater dividends.

On a broader level the particular unfolding of events during the build-up to thefinal announcement in May 2004 is important in highlighting the ideologicalposturing that is a key part of states’ interactions with others as they attempt toaccrue international support for their bids. What sets the 2010 contest apart isthat the bidding countries were also forced to contend with the negativeideological constructions regarding the African continent that infuse the inter-national arena and many of the multilateral forums through which the competingbids are driven and determined.

Concluding remarks

It is significant that South Africa’s leaders heralded the awarding of the 2010finals as a major feat for the African continent, given the severe impediments—political, socio-economic and environmental—it faces. This negative positioningof the continent provided the starting point for the 2010 contest and laid an easyfoundation on which rival countries could construct their ideological claims.Morocco and South Africa most prominently built their campaigns on a certainrhetorical portrayal of Africa that both assented to and challenged the views ofthe continent that predominantly cast it as struggling, lost or backward. Such anapproach allowed them both to attempt a reconstitution of African portrayalsthrough the positive constructions they employed, and to draw on a readilyavailable repertoire of established political ties that paradoxically stem fromAfrica’s initial adverse insertion into the international system. Rather thantranscend such portrayals, therefore, the two countries’ narratives probablyreinforced them.

It can be argued that South Africa’s high profile involvement in the NEPADinitiative and its various attempts to project itself as leader of the Africancontinent account to a significant degree for its success in the bidding war.Political dynamics on the continent and in broader international relations alsogreatly shaped the bidding process.

Given the expansive ideological grounding of the Moroccan and SouthAfrican bids, South Africa’s hosting of the 2010 finals will be widely viewed asan important litmus test for the African continent. The country will also seek toleave its imprint on the manner in which large-scale sports events are ap-proached and planned for in the future and the sorts of lessons its experience canprovide for other developing nations. In this regard, one question that must ariseis whether the way that South Africa sought to advance its bid campaign,particularly internally, will significantly constrain the manner in which it is ableto host the event. The ‘diffusionist’ characteristic of the 2010 bid, for instance,while serving the function of garnering domestic support, may come to have

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important practical ramifications, particularly in the longer-term effects of thetournament: some of the smaller centres and stadiums that have been includedin the bid may not have the requisite levels of tourism and other infrastructureand may therefore not receive the benefits that have been projected (see alsoHorne in this issue).

The economic and emotional legitimations that were so central to the bidcampaign receiving domestic patronage, in other words, may offset some of theactual gains accrued. In the absence of the emotive framing employed, theselection of stadiums and centres might have been very different. Longer-termconsiderations should have more specifically included planning on optimisingthe future use of stadiums and other related investments and on reducing as faras possible negative externalities.

NotesI would like to thank participants at the workshop on ‘Going global: the promises and pitfalls of hostingglobal games’, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, 11–12 June 2004, for their usefulcomments. I am indebted to Niall Wilkins for some of his ideas on sustainable sports development in SouthAfrica.1 See JL Crompton, ‘Economic impact analysis of sports facilities and events: eleven sources of misappli-

cation’, Journal of Sport Management, 9, 1995, pp 14–35; J Horne & W Manzenreiter, Japan, Koreaand the 2002 World Cup, London: Routledge, 2002; and D Judd & S Fainstein, The Tourist City, London:Yale University Press, 1999.

2 See C Hall, Hallmark Tourist Events, London: Belhaven Press, 1992; H Hiller, ‘Mega-events, urbanboosterism and growth strategies: an analysis of the objectives and legitimations of the Cape Town 2004Olympic bid’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 24 (2), 2000, pp 439–458; and GWaitt, ‘The Olympic spirit and civic boosterism: the Sydney 2000 Olympics’, Tourism Geographies, 3(3), 2001, pp 249–278.

3 Hall, Hallmark Tourist Events; RA Beauregard, ‘Tourism and economic development policy in US urbanareas’, in D Ioannides & KG Debbage (eds), The Economic Geography of the Tourist Industry: ASupply-side Analysis, London: Routledge, 1999, pp 220–234; and J Urry, Consuming Places, London:Routledge, 1995.

4 B Holcomb, ‘Marketing cities for tourism’, in Judd & Fainstein, The Tourist City.5 See S Cornelissen, ‘Producing and imaging “place” and “people”: the political economy of South African

international tourist representation’, Review of International Political Economy (forthcoming). SouthAfrica’s entry into the mega-events enterprise has been gradual, commencing with its bid to host the 2004Olympic Games, its hosting of the Rugby World Cup in 1995 and of the Africa Cup of Nations in 1996,and culminating in its hosting of the most recent Cricket World Cup finals in 2003. Its bids for the 2006and 2010 Soccer World Cup have been the most extensive and most instructive for their politicalentanglements.

6 Holcomb, ‘Marketing cities for tourism’; Waitt, ‘The Olympic spirit and civic boosterism’; Hall, HallmarkTourist Events; and B Houlihan, Sport and International Politics, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994.

7 P Alegi, ‘Feel the pull in your soul: local agency and global trends in South Africa’s 2006 World Cupbid’, Soccer and Society, 2 (3), 2001, pp 1–21; and Hiller, ‘Mega-events, urban boosterism and urbangrowth strategies’.

8 A Schollman, H Perkins & K Moore, ‘Rhetoric, claims making and conflict in touristic place promotion:the case of Christchurch, New Zealand’, Tourism Geographies, 3 (3), 2001, pp 300–325.

9 S Cornelissen, ‘Sport mega-events in Africa: processes, impacts and prospects’, Tourism and HospitalityPlanning and Development, 1 (1), 2004, pp 39–56.

10 P Williams & L Chrisman (eds), Colonial Discourse and Post-colonial Theory: A Reader, New York:Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993.

11 See J McLeod, Beginning Postcolonialism, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000; and AMbembe, On the Postcolony, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001.

12 B Ashcroft, G Griffiths & H Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonialLiteratures, London: Routledge, 1989; and A McClintock, A Mufti & E Shohat (eds), Dangerous Liaisons:Gender, Nation and Postcolonial Perspectives, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.

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13 J Sugden & A Tomlinson, ‘International power struggles in the governance of world soccer: the 2002and 2006 World Cup bidding wars’, in Horne & Manzenreiter, Japan, Korea and the 2002 World Cup.

14 E Griffiths, Bidding for Glory: Why South Africa Lost the Olympic and World Cup Bids, and How toWin Next Time, Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2000.

15 Houlihan, Sport and International Politics; and G Jarvie, ‘Sport, nationalism and cultural identity’, in ALincoln (ed), The Changing Politics of Sport, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1993.

16 See Swart and Bob in this issue.17 See L Chalip & A Leyns, ‘Local business leveraging of a sport event: managing an event for economic

benefit’, Journal of Sport Management, 16, 2002, pp 132–158. These authors rightly note that it is acommon feature of bid processes that governments routinely overestimate the economic benefits of hostingan event: by default governments are compelled to cast the effects of mega-events in an overly positivelight.

18 Griffiths, Bidding for Glory.19 Personal communication, CEO of the South African Bid Committee, 13 February 2003.20 Griffiths, Bidding for Glory.21 S Youngsted, ‘Tourism in Morocco: opportunities, challenges and threats’, Africa Insight, 33 (1/2), 1993,

pp 61–68.22 J Cornish, ‘Morocco: ringing in the changes’, South African Yearbook of International Affairs, 2000/01,

Johannesburg: South African Institute of International Affairs, 2000.23 Ibid.24 These confederations are CAF (representing the African continent), UEFA (Europe), AFC (Asia),

CONCACAF (North and Central America and the Caribbean), CONMEBOL (South America) and OFC(Oceania).

25 See J Sugden & A Tomlinson, Fifa and the Contest for World Soccer: Who Rules the People’s Game?,Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998.

26 Sugden & Tomlinson, ‘International power struggles in the governance of world soccer’.27 South Africa’s initial proposal for 2006 focused on the following cities: Bloemfontein, Cape Town,

Durban, Johannesburg, Mafikeng, Polokwane, Port Elizabeth, Pretoria and Rustenburg. Its renewed bidfor 2010 included three new cities—Orkney, Nelspruit and Kimberley.

28 FIFA, Inspection Group Report for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Zurich: FIFA, 2004.29 Arabic News, ‘Omnium Nord Africain Corp contributes to Morocco’s World Cup bid’, 12 June 1999;

and Mail and Guardian, ‘For the good of the game’, 28 April 2004.30 FIFA, Inspection Group Report.31 Importantly, to mark the occasion and celebrate Mbeki’s presidential inauguration in early May, a number

of FIFA executive committee members, among them Blatter, visited South Africa.32 In contrast, the Moroccan and Egyptian delegations consisted of few or no political incumbents or

figureheads.33 E Bruner, ‘Transformation of self in tourism’, Annals of Tourism Research, 18, 1991, pp 238–250; and

A Norton, ‘Experiencing nature: the reproduction of environmental discourse through safari tourism inEast Africa’, Geoforum, 27 (3), 1996, pp 355–373.

34 Bruner, ‘Transformation of self in tourism’.35 K Dunn, ‘MadLib#32: the (Blank)African state: rethinking the sovereign state in International Relations

theory’, in K Dunn & T Shaw (eds), Africa’s Challenge to International Relations Theory, Basingstoke:Palgrave, 2001; and T Mbeki, Presentation to the FIFA Executive Committee on South Africa’s bid forthe 2010 Soccer World Cup, 14 May 2004.

36 See J Maguire, Global Sport: Identities, Societies, Civilizations, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999; AAppadurai, ‘Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy’, Public Culture, 2 (2), 1990,pp 1–24; and A Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Minneapolis, MN:University of Minnesota Press, 1996. See particluarly Appadurai’s delineation of mediascapes, ethnoscapes,financescapes, technoscapes and ideoscapes.

37 Alegi, ‘Feel the pull in your soul’; and Cornelissen, ‘Sport mega-events in Africa’.38 P Darby, ‘Soccer, colonial doctrine and indigenous resistance: mapping the political persona of FIFA’s

African constituency’, Culture, Sport, Society, 3 (1), 2000, pp 61–87.39 Eastern Province Herald, 19 July 2000.40 South Africa Bid Committee website, www.safa.net/worldcup 2010 bid/index.41 ‘Morocco the fly in SA bid ointment’, Mail and Guardian, 7 June 2000.42 Mbeki, Presentation to the FIFA Executive Committee.43 ‘African football confederation is embarrassed by Morocco, South Africa bids’, Arabic News, 27 December

1999.44 Cornelissen, ‘Producing and imaging “place” and “people” ’.45 ‘Benhima tours four African voting countries to promote Moroccan bid to host 2006 World Cup’, Arabic

News, 20 April 2000.

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46 G Mills, ‘Morocco: between the Western Sahara and an African Renaissance’, South African Yearbookof International Affairs, 2001/02, Johannesburg: South African Institute of International Affairs, 2001.

47 ‘More than 150 European figures back Morocco’s World Cup bid’, Arabic News, 15 March 2000.48 ‘It is time Arab land hosted world soccer cup’, Arabic News, 10 December 1999.49 FIFA press conference, 15 May 2004.

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