The ugly truth about the beautiful game

When South Africa was chosen to host the 2010 World Cup, it was hailed as a chance to 'give something back' to Africa. But, as Alex Duval Smith reports, the biggest event on Earth will do little for the planet's poorest people

Heralded as a historic turning point for an unlucky continent, Africa's first-ever World Cup – which kicks off in Johannesburg next Friday – increasingly looks like the playground for the rich that its critics decry. As final preparations are made in the host cities to welcome some of the world's most famous, and most well-paid, sportsmen, tangible benefits elsewhere in Africa from the world's biggest sporting event look as elusive as ever.

Under strict bylaws enforced at the insistence of football's governing body, informal traders – a crucial part of any African economy – have been banned around the 10 stadiums where matches will be played. Even the future of the most important legacy project of the tournament – public bus transport – is in the balance, amid government reticence to stand up to South Africa's powerful minibus-taxi industry. Sepp Blatter, the president of Fifa, which expects to earn more than £3bn from sponsorship and television rights, has insisted that the event is about "giving back to Africa what the continent has given world football" through its players. The organisation points to the 20 "centres for hope" – football academies – that it will build.

But radical Sowetan columnist Andile Mngxitama said all Fifa is giving Africa is a month-long feel-good episode which will do little, long-term, to change perceptions or economic realities. "The World Cup is a colonial playground for the rich and for a few wannabes in the so-called South African elite," he argued. "Whereas in the past we were conquered, the South African government has simply invited the colonisers this time." He claims that the £4bn spent by the government on infrastructure development in the nine host cities should have been used to create sustainable jobs in industry.