Why aren’t more fans travelling to the world cup?

The World Cup is the most prestigious sporting event in the world. Occurring only every four years adds even more anticipation and excitement to a tournament teaming with intrigue, beauty, and elation from football fans around the world. Even the most uninterested or casual football viewers tune in to the World Cup. As the newest installment of the tournament arrives shortly in the form of World Cup 2010 South Africa, will it bring with it all the thrill and pomp and circumstance that its predecessors have? Many in the footballing universe believe there is cause for concern for its upcoming global competition.

Since 1930, 18 World Cups have been played throughout the world. Until now, the World Cup was hosted primarily in South America, Europe, North America, and most recently in Asia. The World Cup 2010 will denote a special occasion in the tournament’s illustrious 80 year history, as it will be hosted by an African nation for the first time.  While this was a bold and respectable choice by FIFA, as they have witnessed the tremendous growth of the sport on the continent over recent years, it has since been seen as problematic both logistically and economically.

After making the decision to hand the reigns of hosting to South Africa, mainly because FIFA believed it to be the country that could best develop the vast infrastructure needed to handle the tournament, concerns were immediately raised. Unlike recent host Germany, which already had many World Cup regulation stadia at its disposal, as well as ample accommodation and various public transportation options surrounding all the host cities, South Africa became a construction site after the announcement was made.  Building stadiums, new roads, hotels, and transportation to, from, and around each city is a big ask of any country. While the South African government assured FIFA they would have everything required for the tournament, many pointed out an even bigger problem throughout the country; crime.

According to Homeland Security Newswire, “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.” These are staggering statistics for a country that was initially planning to welcome 2.5 million visitors. These figures were always seen as wildly optimistic, and with less than 60 days before the finals commence, FIFA expects fewer than 450,000 foreign fans will travel to South Africa for the games. The UK, normally one of the biggest traveling contingencies, have bought only 67,654 tickets, less than the number of fans that typically attend a Manchester United home game.

Rampant crime and violence, coupled with the distance needed to travel for many foreign fans has deterred a large portion of the normal world cup attendees from going.  Great distance from the Americas and Europe means higher costs for travel, and in difficult economic times around the world, this has become an even greater factor then when the announcement was first made. FIFA and South Africa have jointly swept pundit and fan concerns about safety and cost under the rug in order to go ahead with their grand plan of Africa hosting its first World Cup. What seemed like a forward movement in football’s history may turn out to be a major catastrophe as games could be played in half empty stadiums.