Just as the football at the 2010 World Cup will be great, someone will make lots of money. It is not going to be local businesses for sure. This excellent 13 minute short documentary ("Trademark 2010″) for Dutch TV channel, VPRO, covers the fantasy that local people–small businesspeople, informal traders–will make money or get jobs during the tournament.

People living in poverty near Soccer City stadium outside Johannesburg battle police during anti-World Cup protests. Local residents demand houses rather than world-class stadiums.
Recommended reading: Ashwin Desai's The Poors and this article.

Keeping football real. Hundreds of older South African women play football after cleaning houses, cooking meals, or selling food along township's streets. 83-year-old Nora Makhubela, a survivor of eight strokes, told Reuters: "I pray every day to God to keep me alive until 2010. I would really love to watch the games," she said.

He ain't no Moses. But it's official. Carlos Alberto Parreira is back as Bafana coach through the 2010 World Cup. And laughing all the way to the bank, again.
This time, however, he'll have to deal with resentment in South Africa over his reappointment, particularly among those who believed the time was right for a local coach to get the nod.

Bafana's Brazilian coach, Joel Santana, is out of a job. Pallid performances and pitiful results sunk the former Flamengo coach. "In the bigger picture and the interest of the country," said Mandla Mazibuko, SAFA vice-president, "he [Santana] realized while he was doing his best, his best was not good enough.

Kick Off magazine reports that Kirsten Nematandani emerged victorious in the contentious SAFA presidential race during a marathon annual general meeting in Joburg. Nematandani was elected unopposed after 2010 LOC Chief Executive Officer Danny Jordaan and Chairman Irvin Khoza withdrew from the race.

From Reuters:

CAPE TOWN, Sept 17 (Reuters) - South Africa faces a funding shortfall of 2.3 billion rand ($315 million) for six new stadiums built for next year's Soccer World Cup, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Thursday.
South Africa, in its first recession in 17 years, is the first African country to host the world's most watched sports spectacle, starting next June.

The 2009 Highway Africa Conference, held recently at Port Elizabeth's new World Cup stadium (photo above), helped African media be better prepared to cover the 2010 World Cup, according to Guy Berger, head of Rhodes University's School of Journalism and Media Studies. African media should work to ensure that "coverage is not only focused on the glitz and glamour aspect of the World Cup," Berger said, "but must be extended to critical evaluation of socioeconomic consequences.