The World Cup Circus in Cape Town

I’m going to side step the mass hysteria about Arsenal’s misfortunes that have dominated the news cycles this week. Unnecessary overkill is a state of affairs that comes to mind.

What was hard to avoid in the last 24 hours though, was the circus surrounding the draw for the FIFA 2010 World cup. For some reason, I don’t recall the draws in 2005 and 2001 being so overwhelming – to the point where I question whether the circus justified the result.

I’m one of those who takes the view that it really doesn’t matter who is playing who in the group stages – if you’re going to win the greatest show on earth, then you’ll have to beat the best teams on the way to collecting the world cup. Does it then really matter at what stage you beat or eliminate your opposition?

I’m actually considering writing to the BBC to ask them to clarify how many journalists from different TV and radio stations they sent to South Africa for this half hour event – and to justify the cost of it. We can do that, right?

Anyway, in mid October, I wrote the article Why England won’t win the 2010 World Cup. Yesterday’s draw pitting England against the US of A, Algeria and Slovenia is an appropriate illustration of my argument. Most of the journalists commenting during the draw were praying and hoping for either an easy ride or a convenient venue (whatever convenient is). With some of these journalists like Mike Ingam from BBC radio 5 lite – openly showing the tension and desire to avoid floating threats like Portugal and France.

One of the monumentally stupid things any team can do is write off a national team that has fought through qualification over the last 2 years and has reached the World cup final. They are there on merit (though English journalists – and not necessarily Irish ones – will argue and over blow the assertion that France are not worthy participants). The US and Algeria are certainly not shifty teams that will roll over and die when confronted by England’s very own golden generation – far from that. Slovenia is also not a walk over as England well know – they only beat them 2-1 in a friendly.

I think though, that what was more disturbing to me was the air of celebrity hanging all around the convention centre. The actress Chalize Theron looked so out of place and totally clueless it was just embarrassing. I would personally have preferred to see the mother or a representative of Eudy Simelane, the late Banyana Banyana star who had retired from active football and was aspiring to be one of the more prominent female referees in the game. For those who don’t know, the 31 year old South African star was brutally gang raped and murdered simply for being a lesbian.

Eudy wasn’t there to witness the monumental beginning of the first World cup held in her home country – it would have been more befitting to have someone represent her memory (both in footballing terms and for the crimes against women) than to have clueless celebrities bouncing up and down the convention centre to make things look pretty.

And for all the hype around David Beckham’s involvement in this event as well as the 2018 England world cup bid, his contribution to the proceedings was so underwhelming it was almost annoying. All he could muster was to say “England has a good group draw though no team is easy – we’re humbled to be taking part”….FFS, he could have said that on the phone from his house in LA.

And so the countdown begins to the opening match in Cape Town between Bufana Bufana and Carlos Vela’s Mehico.

And Ireland are going to be the 33rd team in the World cup (*wink wink*) playing friendlies against any team that wants to have some good practice before the tournament.

For those who don’t already know- I’d also like to draw your attention to a weekly Friday column that I write at A Cultured Left Foot. Here are my last 2 articles in the column:

• Stone Cold Friday: Unite and win, Divide and fail
• Stone Cold Friday: Examining the gap between Arsenal and Chelsea