Sepp Blatter is wearing no clothes

I hate to be the one to say that the emperor is not wearing any clothes … but, the emperor is not wearing any clothes.

The 2010 World Cup in South Africa has become overhyped to the point where ordinary South Africans are being duped and are headed for financial disaster.

Let me say, though, to the 2010 sceptics who are now popping the champagne at the thought of having converted another to their cause: sorry to piss on your party. I think South Africa deserves to host the World Cup. And I’ll think we’ll do a fine job hosting it. I think the stadiums will be ready, a plan will be made about crime, spectators and tourists will be moved around the country quickly and efficiently and I think that all South Africans will rise to the challenge to make the experience an awesome one for everyone. Because we’re a great, vibrant, entrepreneurial nation.

But then July 12 2010 will come along. It is the day after the final. Brazil will pack up their trophy and head home, the English fans will wonder why it all went wrong in the group stages and will make themselves feel better by sacking and publicly humiliating their coach, the Aussies will wonder why they even bothered, and everyone else will not have noticed that they had. And South Africa will be brought back down to Earth, not with a bump, but with a crash.

The next edition of the Mail & Guardian will have a disturbing lead story, headlined “The World Cup passed us by”. It will focus on a poor family who, believing the hype and Fifa-stoked predictions of boom and prosperity for all, invested their life savings in a pile of T-shirts that, at double the price, were going to be flogged to passing spectators at traffic lights. The proceeds were going to feed the family for a year and send their eldest daughter to university so she could become a doctor and help lift the family out of poverty.

Instead, their sales were thwarted when the Fifa police confiscated half their stock because they weren’t official merchandise; the other half is gathering dust in their front room. Because of the freshly brokered deal between the SABC and SuperSport the family were able to watch the game, which made them happy, but on screen they saw tens of thousands of fans wearing T-shirts manufactured in China, the profits of which will find their way off to make some rich person richer and to fund Mr Blatter’s new yacht.

Others in the county tell a similar story. Family-run B&Bs will close down as tourism tails off and the owners can’t keep up with the increased bond repayments they face after building on an extra 10 rooms, and Joshua Doore will be repossessing the extra furniture they bought on credit and can no longer afford and no longer need.

So where does it all go wrong? It will all be traced back to 2006 when the World Cup 2010 operation kicked into gear. A boom is being promised to everyone by everyone. And South Africans are swallowing it. And so are our neighbours. Zimbabwe is going to invest billions of dollars in fancy game lodges to attract some of the tourists and, for the month of the World Cup and possibly a week or two afterwards, it will operate at 100% capacity. It will then empty out and things will return to normal (whatever “normal” is in Zimbabwe in three years’ time).

Here’s a cup of cold water. Pour it where you like. According to Tourism South Africa, in June 2007 we had 629 817 foreign visitors legally come through our airports and ports (not including those running across the border we share with the regime of Mad Bob). A total of 456 875 of those came from countries directly adjacent to ours (Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique). The remaining 172 942 came from the rest of Africa, Europe, Asia, the Americas and elsewhere.

Marthinus van Schalkwyk gave a talk in 2004 and estimated that the World Cup would bring an additional 400 000 people to our shores. Great, that’s a lot of people. And they’ll all need somewhere to sleep, something to eat, something to do when they’re not watching football and will have pocketloads of dollars and euros to spend on things to take home. Our economy will boom, of that there is no doubt.

But to service that number of people adequately, ordinary South Africans are going to stretch themselves financially and, blinded by promises of great returns, are going to get themselves into huge debt. And once the crowds have gone, they’re going to have no way of servicing that debt. We’re not going to be able to sustain an extra 400 000 people a month — that would require a 66% increase on current tourism levels. It’s simply not going to happen.

Some statistics now report that, a year after the 2006 World Cup, tourism to Germany has grown by just 2%. Even if we vastly improve on that and can grow it by 20%, that’s still only an extra 120 000-odd people a month. Which leaves 280 000 empty beds. And those beds will be in the B&Bs and guesthouses because the new five-star hotels have the reputation and marketing power to sustain themselves through the drop. A total of 280 000 restaurant seats will be empty. And 280 000 fewer people will be coming through our great new flashy airports.

So here’s my question to those who are punting the Fifa-hyped-view: Shouldn’t you take a deep breath and ask whether you are acting responsibly? When you talk of “boom”, give people direction. Teach them how to access responsible credit and draw up a business plan. Show them how to do cash flows and projections. And how to be realistic. Avoid rhetoric and hype. Be real. Because, after 2010 has come and gone, there are going to be many angry people out there, and they’ll be trawling through the speeches, press statements and websites that are being published today to find someone to blame.

For the record and to cover my own back, then, let me say it again: be careful. The emperor is wearing no clothes.