South Africa ponders how to keep the Cup flowing (News Feature)

By Clare Byrne Jul 12, 2010, 13:27 GMT

Cape Town - South Africans woke to a new post-World Cup era on Monday wondering how to keep the can-do spirit of the tournament flowing.

As the country continued to pat itself and the organizers on the back for a successful tournament, some commentators couldn't resist another 'told you so' to the prophets of African World Cup doom.

'We showed them, the doomsayers, that we could pull it off,' Johannesburg's The Star newspaper wrote. 'Africa is the dark continent no longer,' the paper added,

While all papers were full of congratulations for the 'campiones', a cartoonist in the Sowetan found the real champions to be South Africans.

A vuvuzela-blowing fan occupied the top spot on a '2010 winners' podium, with the World Cup local organizing committee in second place and the players at the tournament in third.

But the inevitable questions were also being asked. Had it all been worthwhile? And where to from here?

The government says it spent around 40 billion rand (more than 5.2 billion dollars) on infrastructure for the tournament, including five new and five upgraded stadia and upgraded roads and airports.

Who could tell what the opportunity cost of such spending on 'non- essential' infrastructure was, Business Day newspaper said.

What the World Cup had done, however, was open the eyes of the world to what South Africa had to offer, and remind South Africans what they could do - and that was a 'sublime combination, rich with opportunities we dare not waste.'

In a sign the world is already beginning to see South Africa with new eyes, the International Monetary Fund last week upped its forecast for South Africa's GDP to grow 3.2 per cent this year, buoyed by predictions of a surge of interest from foreign investors.

President Jacob Zuma's government expects the World Cup to add half a percentage point to GDP this year.

But circumspection was also the order of the day. 'The World Cup was never going to solve South Africa's problems,' The Star reminded.

Many of the workers who built the World Cup stadiums are jobless now, part of the nearly 1 million people who lost their jobs over the past year, pushing up employment to a little over 25 per cent.

Ongoing job losses are one of the factors cited for renewed resentment towards foreign migrants, which has bubbled up again in recent weeks and threatens to spill over into violence.

As the World Cup closed in a blaze of fireworks at Soccer City Sunday night, scores of foreign migrants, mostly Africans, were fleeing their homes in townships in the Western Cape for fear of attack.

More than 100 people took shelter in local police stations, 'mainly because they were fearful', police said, but in some places because there had been attacks on foreign-owned shops.

Commentators said that now the government had shown it could organize the world's biggest sporting spectacle, it should attack the country's problems with the same sense of purpose.

Chief among those problems is crime. South Africa has some of the world's highest rates of murder, assault and rape - yet the World Cup was remarkably crime-free.

A huge increase in visible policing during the tournament and the steely pursuit of even minor offenders by dedicated World Cup courts saw motivation levels among criminals sink to French football team levels, the New York Times quipped.

'Let's see the efficiency of World Cup policing begin to dent crime in this country,' The Citizen newspaper urged.

National police commissioner, General Bheki Cele, complained Sunday the police were victims of their own success.

'The bad thing that you have done is that you have created a standard that you need to maintain.'