THE FACT OF THE MATTER
BY PAUL HOPKINS
Watching the climactic moments of the World Cup over the past weeks brings to mind a conversation I once had.
“You see one of your good friends do something good and you take your ball home and learn to do it yourself. Next day, you’re back and say to them: ‘Look. I can do that, too’,” I am told.
His name is Sibeko. He’s 10. I meet him on a piece of unkempt grassland, his football pitch, in the township of Athlone, a half-hour drive from the affluent suburbs of Cape Town. He is showing off to his team-mates, balancing his bare feet on the well-worn football. He is good. He shows promise. Potential.
Whether it’s Athlone, Guguletu or Khayelitsha, the townships of South Africa’s Mother City, or any township in Johannesburg or Durban, wherever there is a piece of wasteland, barren and unkempt – and there is much of it – you will find a makeshift football pitch, rickety goalposts and all.
White South Africans may have their rugby and their cricket, but football is the all-consuming passion for Black South Africans, from the mouths of those hoping the event, back in early 2010 and with the country all set to host the World Cup, would bring in revenue, boost tourism and put the newly independent country firmly on the world stage.
But amid South Africa’s and FIFA’s efforts to ensure such an outcome, there were growing fears back then that access to the games – in nine different locations – would be well outside the remit of the ordinary South African, young boys like Sibeko for whom all this was one big dream come true.
For access to tickets was – up to the time Sibeko and I crossed paths – only via credit card and online booking and obviously aimed at attracting hordes of overseas fans following their qualifying country to sunny South Africa.
Sadly, the reality was that online access and credit cards were not the everyday tools of Sibeko and millions of South Africans.
However, with less than a month before the World Cup came the news that the host cities were desperately trying to come up with models to generate money to cover the ‘Ramakuela’. But what was also unnerving was that figures released that week back in 2010 showed that the number of tourists flying into South Africa for the World Cup was far removed from projected figures.
Now, though, as Sibeko kicked a ball, most of the fans filling the seats at the 64 matches at the 2010 World Cup would be, or would have to be, South Africans.
It was also reported that South Africans had snapped up tickets in a last-minute surge, with 300,000 sold in the last few weeks. But that was only because the authorities stopped online and credit card bookings being the only means to get to a game.
Hopefully, I pondered that day, it was not too little, too late for young Sibeko and his friends, whom I watched that evening on a broken stretch of dry veld as they kicked around a busted football, aiming to be top of the world. Full of fun and joy to kick a papier-mâché-made football around, despite their abject poverty.
And, like Sibeko, they all wanted to grow up to play football for their country some day. Some, indeed, aware of the greater earning potential, had set their sights on European clubs.
Playing host to the 2010 World Cup back then made them proud as peacocks.
And I wonder now if any of them that day in the township of Athlone are now among the ranks of the 2026 World Cup.
Did their field of dreams come true? Did Sibeko make it to the top of his world?
I pray and hope that that raggedy, friendly little boy, with the most gorgeous smile and footballing talent, did…
