When South Africa won the right to host the 2010 World Cup, tears streamed down the faces of those gathered in Cape Town's Good Hope Centre. In Zurich, the organising committee chief executive Danny Jordaan and then president Nelson Mandela led similarly joyous celebrations in the usually antisepticat Fifa HQ. Six years later, on the eve of an opening ceremony at which it is desperately hoped a now frail Mandela will appear as guest of honour, huge anticipation and pride mingle with underlying concerns about whether the hopes loaded on to it are justified.
Nine host cities will welcome up to 350,000 overseas visitors, down on initial estimates due to the global recession, a misjudged ticket sales process and fears about high prices and security. Logistically, South Africa appears ready to prove the doomsayers wrong. Stadiums will be ready, airports and transport links complete and 41,000 dedicated police will counter security fears that are significant but overplayed. Once attention turns to the action on the pitch, against the backdrop of a nation enthusiastically embracing the arrival of the world's best players on their doorstep, organisers will deserve the plaudits that will flow their way.
As flags sprout from doorways and cars, the organisers' vision of the World Cup as the ultimate "nation building" event, helping write a new chapter in the country's post-apartheid history, appears justified. "It's about bringing a country and society that had been virtually at war for many years together in a new democratic, non-sexist South Africa," Jordaan declared in a speech at Stamford Bridge in March.
And yet. The South African media has loudly questioned whether the World Cup will do more for Fifa, which has banked a record $3.2bn (£2.2bn) in media and marketing revenues, and its sponsors than the host country and its people. The global governing body argues that those revenues fund its development work around the world and everything it does in the four years between World Cups. Under its profitable model, costs are borne by the host nation and all marketing and media revenues retained by Fifa.
The local organising committee retains some ticket income to meet its costs, and Fifa's long list of demands on national governments is considered worthwhile in return for the value of inward investment and the promotional power of having the eyes of the world on you for a month. Whether the sums add up when the country in question is a fast developing nation – in which up to 50% of the population live in poverty – remains open to a debate that will continue to rage once the curtain comes down in South Africa and attention turns to Brazil for 2014.
For its model to work, Fifa needs to aggressively protect its assets. This has gone down particularly badly in South Africa, where locals fear they will be unable to share in the promised bonanza. Tough restrictions on what can be sold in proximity to World Cup venues and fan fests will be enforced. Hotel and guesthouse owners too have long held grievances against Fifa and Match, its accommodation and ticketing partner.
A recent 200-page report by the Institute for Security Studies thinktank ran through the list of concerns in meticulous detail: opaque tendering processes, unease at Fifa's demands, searching critiques of the role of Match and tales of personal enrichment taking precedence over the greater good. It concludes: "The magnitude and uniqueness of the event, the nature of the construction industry, the vast sums of money involved, weak internal institutional oversight and accountability, opaque decision-making and the dearth of publicly available information all contribute to an environment conducive to conflicts of interest and corruption."
Nor does the legacy for football appear secure. There is hope in South Africa that the World Cup can draw wealthy white middle classes to a game that has traditionally been the domain of the black population, boosting its appeal to sponsors and making it a truly national sport. But Mark Fish and Lucas Radebe, veterans of the victorious 1996 Africa Cup of Nations squad, are critical of the way football authorities failed to capitalise on that victory and neglected the game's infrastructure in favour of internecine power struggles.
The South African Premier League is underpowered, with most fans preferring the English game and the handful of decent players picked off by clubs abroad. The same remains true throughout Africa and although Sepp Blatter, the Fifa president, has been outspoken on the human cost of "trafficking" young African players to Europe, the failure to build an infrastructure that might help them may come to be seen as one of the biggest holes in the World Cup's promised legacy.
The 40,000 capacity Orlando Stadium in Soweto, home of the Pirates, has been refurbished. It will host a pop concert on the eve of the tournament and act as a training venue during the World Cup. Most of the gleaming new stadiums are reliant on persuading rugby clubs to move in if they are to have a viable future.
Promised Fifa development programmes – new artificial pitches throughout South Africa and for all 53 countries on the continent – are welcome but appear paltry alongside those $3.2bn in revenues. Fifa points to its Goal programme that invests $250,000 a year in every member country and 20 Football For Hope centres that will be scattered throughout Africa at a cost of $9m, delivering vital community programmes in impoverished areas. But some of the residents of those very same communities have been among the more vociferous critics of the World Cup. For them, Fifa's typically glib slogan – "Celebrate Africa's Humanity" – rings particularly hollow. "We have realised that the 2010 Fifa World Cup is meant not for the poor but for the rich… it has not brought any change into our lives or conditions in which we are living under," activists from Cape Town's Reclaim the City movement said.
The World Cup will be seen not only as a celebration of how far the country has come since apartheid but also a test of the theory that international sporting events can act as a means to turbo-charge infrastructure investment and leave a positive social and sporting legacy in all sorts of ways. It is an impression that Fifa and the International Olympic Committee are keen to foster among the nations jostling ever more enthusiastically for the right to host so-called "mega events". It also plays to the egos (in some cases) and genuinely held beliefs (in others) of those at the top of those organisations that sport has a unique transformative power.
Critics claim the notion that grateful developing nations should be forced to build gleaming sporting venues at great expense in the belief that it will accelerate development doesn't add up. They claim money poured into making sure venues are ready, transport systems upgraded and visitors made to feel safe would be better spent on basic amenities. Organisers have claimed the World Cup will deliver a $5.5bn boost to the economy and create 415,000 jobs. But many of those jobs are by their nature temporary and others say such figures are impossible to verify.
On the road from the airport in Cape Town to thestunningly located Green Point Stadium where England will play Algeria, billboards proclaim "From Shantyland to Dignity". They are advertising government plans to rehouse the 1.3 million people who live in the Khayelitsha township. But the waiting list stands at 400,000 and increasingly violent protests in some townships about slow progress in raising living standards tell their own story.
Experts say South Africa is a complex nation that defies glib generalisation. Ann Bernstein, the director of the Centre for Development and Enterprise, said the country should be judged against other fast developing nations such as India and Brazil rather than viewed through a "post-colonial lens". "South Africa needs high economic growth and strong leadership," she said. "The global economic crisis has affected us. Over one million people have lost their jobs since March 2009 and we are struggling politically.The infighting and lack of direction among the ANC and its allies is extremely worrying. Yet in many ways the country is doing quite well. One shouldn't extrapolate from that to say everything is on a downhill slope. Last quarter, the economy grew at 3.6%."
Likewise, there are two sides to the investment poured in to ready the country for what has been described as South Africa's coming out party. "I feel concerned about the stadiums and it would be better if we were holding this event without a global recession," Bernstein said. "But there's no doubt that the airports are now among the best in the world, investment in roads and infrastructure has been speeded up and the money may not have been found without the World Cup."
For all the concerns, the power of the World Cup to create a surge of optimism should not be underestimated. Gary Mabbutt, the former Spurs defender who moved to South Africa and is an ambassador for both the 2010 and England's 2018 World Cup bid, speaks for many when he predicts this will be "the best World Cup ever". And perhaps the chance for the world to look with fresh eyes at a country and a continent too often defined by a set of tired stereotypes will be its true legacy. Jordaan has described it as nothing less than "an image makeover of the country and the continent", the "the world's biggest ever free advert".
"The case can't be made definitely that this will set South Africa on the map, but it has the chance to create a wave of attention," Bernstein said. So many things rest on the decisions we take afterwards."
