Security concerns hobble World Cup; FIFA fears games played in empty stadiums
It looked like a good idea — hold the first World Cup tournament in Africa; FIFA, the world soccer governing body, selected South Africa — ignoring suggestions that rampant crime and violence in the country would deter soccer fans from coming; now, in a stunning admission, FIFA says 500,000 tickets are still unsold; professional event organizers say the number is much higher; in the United Kingdom, only 67,654 World Cup tickets have been sold — fewer than the number of fans who typically attend a Manchester United home game
Here is an example of what happens when you do not take security considerations seriously. When FIFA, the world’s soccer governing body, decided to hold the 2010 World Cup in Africa, it chose South Africa over other countries on the continent because it figured that the country was in a better position than other African countries to build or augment the necessary infrastructure — stadiums, hotels, public transportation.
There were two worries about the choice, though. The first was the distance of the country from where most soccer fans live. With longer flight distances come higher ticket prices.
FIFA officials reckoned that distance would be a problem, but not a major one. They pointed out to Japan and South Korea, where the World Cup was jointly held in 2002. The two countries are even farther away from Europe and the Americas, yet 2.9 million soccer fans made it to the games.
The second worry was the level of crime in South Africa. As we wrote in January (“Stab-proof Vests for Soccer Fans Going to South Africa for the World Cup,” 21 January 2010 HSNW), South Africa leads the world in all manners of crime per capita. Just one example: murders. Between April 2008 and March 2009, the last period for which confirmed figures are available, there were 18,148 murders in South Africa, a country of 49,000,000 people. During the same period, the United States, with 307,000,000 people, had 16,204 murders.
The number of murders per year in South Africa is practically identical to the estimated 18,000 killed in Mexico’s drug war. Mexico, however, is a country of 111,000,000 people, and the 18,000 were killed over nearly three-and-half years — since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon launched his anti-drug cartel campaign.
It now appears that FIFA erred — seriously erred — in not taking the issue of crime in South Africa more seriously. We should note that, in a way, FIFA did: the organization admitted early on that we were not going to see 3.3 million fans flock to the games in South Africa — as did in 2006, when the World Cup was held in Germany. FIFA also admitted that there would not be as many spectators as the 2.9 million who watched the games in South Korea and Japan in 2002. FIFA, however, did say it was expecting about 2.5 million fans to make it to South Africa. Event organizing specialists said all
