“Life is rhythm, football is rhythm and I feel the rhythm when I am in South Africa.” This was the rhetoric promoted by Sepp Blatter, the 74 year-old Swiss president of FIFA, on the awarding of the 2010 World Cup to South Africa. Such soundbites reflect on the idea that South Africa will benefit enormously in economic and social terms from the four week tournament between June and July.

Such a ‘love story’ (another Blatterism) is no doubt confirmed by the record £2.2bn FIFA have banked in media and marketing revenues. The financial aspects of this World Cup have come under much scrutiny as the positive impacts on the country appear small in relation to the profits of FIFA.

While several building jobs were created and each stadium construction worker was given a pair of tickets to a game, several of the locals have been priced out of attending the sporting event of the century in their homeland. The low price tickets are limited and the innovation of any local businessmen is being suppressed by FIFA’s desire to protect their product and remove any unlicensed World Cup products.

Accusations of nepotism rose when FIFA awarded the match hospitality rights for £75m to Match, a Zurich-based firm, coincidentally owned by the nephew of Sepp Blatter. This has caused issue with several hotels and accommodation services, while strict enforcement of licensing means the locals are forbidden to sell goods within a certain area around each stadium, thus losing a large number of potential customers.

Furthermore, FIFA’s stance of the host nation taking on all construction costs means South Africa have spent several billion rand to ready various stadia around the country, several of which will be unused after the stadium, causing several ‘white elephants’ to stick out. Some of these will have an annual running cost of 18 million rand. It is unlikely that any football teams will be able to attract crowds to sustainably use these stadia, given that the domestic league is secondary in terms of popularity to the English Premier League. Stadiums have been built in cities such as Durban when existing ones predominantly used for Rugby could have been renovated at a lower cost.

Promises of social and economic growth along with the stadium construction in various areas haven’t been fulfilled, with rises in living standards slow, and the majority of jobs created by the tournament are temporary by nature. Initial estimates of foreign fans have been cut by half from 850,000 fans due to reports of violent crime exaggerated by Western media outlets from German papers warning readers to buy bullet-proof vests to others reporting of rogue baboons annoying tourists.

FIFA’s promise of developing infrastructure seems paltry in relation to the profits the NGO will make, promising only £250,000 a year to each member country and a $9m investment for 20 ‘Football for Hope’ centres across the continent. Naturally, this is in relation to the billions Blatter and co. will make from the tournament.

Despite the widely cynical view held by this blog, the description of the World Cup as “an image makeover of the country and the continent” according to Danny Jordaan, the organising committee chief executive, is a very true one. Transport links have been modernised, and South Africa will retain a large portion of the ticket income.

However, Jordaan’s claim that it is the “world’s biggest ever free advert” is far more questionable, given the expenditure the Jacob Zuma’s government had to undertake to hold this World Cup. FIFA’s slogan ‘Celebrate Africa’s Humanity’ appears particularly patronizing, given the financial model adopted for the World Cup. FIFA’s model is just another of neo-colonialism in action.