Dot Com

One of the things that has surprised us attending these games is how commercialized the World Cup has become. I guess one shouldn´t have been so surprised given how professional sports have developed over the last decades. But we have been taken aback by the level of commercialization. We have asked ourselves whether the purpose of the tournment is to promote and celebrate soccer worldwide and to determine which country has the best national team or whether it is merely a cashmaking machine for FIFA, the world soccer association. Of course, the FIFA website ends in dot com and not dot org which suggests the orientation of this company.

FIFA is very concerned with its brand and operates as a franchise similar to McDonalds or Subway. For example, we went to the Fanfest here in Cape Town yesterday and it was all about promoting Coca Cola, Sony, or Hyundai, FIFA´s main corporat sponsors.. There was very little at the FanFest to suggest that we were in Africa or in Cape Town. It was a standard, sterlie environment. We saw a live camera shot from the FanFest in Brazil and it look exactly like the one in Cape Town. When we were at the Stadium in Port Elizabeth, all the stalls and vendors looked exactly the same as in Cape Town. It would have been much more interesting and worthwhile to allow local vendors to sell their merchandize and food at the stadiums.

Yesterday, we went on touristy boat ride from Hout Bay to Seal Island. It was an hour boat ride to see some seals sunbathing. It was a ripoff and our only disappointment in this trip. In the afternoon, we went swimming in the sea (the weather was pretty good). Last night, we went to Long Street, which has lots of restaurants and trendy clothes stores. We went to a local culinary institution called Mama Africa which was great. It had live music (a great marimba band) and the menu featured "ethnic food" such as grilled ostrich, springbok or crocodile. A bit touristy but the atmosphere was great and the place was packed even though it was a Monday night. We are going to return there tonight after the game. We watched the Brazil Chile game there. We started chatting with two women sitting next to our table who were from Tanzania. They were on a business trip in Cape Town. As it turns out, one of them studied at Williams College at the Center for Development Economics! Quite the coincidence! She graduated in 2000 and will return to Williamstown in October for the 50th anniversary of CDE. We know a lot of people in common after her year in Williamstown.

Today, we are going to Spain Portugal. The weather is miserable. It is windy and rainy and the forecast calls for more rain. But we have great seats and this should be a cracker of a game. We bought Spanish flags yesterday and Benni will be wearing the Spanish team shirt. People predict though that the audience will be 80% Portuguese and 20% Spanish. Supposedly there is a huge Portuguese community here in Cape Town and they are coming out in droves for this game. I predict Spain will win in an attacking game.