A South African woman’s verdict on the legacy of the 2010 World Cup
I remember the first Friday of the 2010 World Cup like it was yesterday. The entire day was filled with excitement and nerves, anticipating the opening match our country was going to play in. Not a soul was caught without their respective country’s regalia and everyone who was anyone conversed in football-related topics like strategies, teams, and predictions. When it came time to make history, my friends and I raced home minutes before the match so we could be in time for kickoff.
We arrived home just in time to watch our boys walk through the tunnel and I remember how emotional I was watching them sing our national anthem with pride. South Africa stepped onto the world stage to play with the best. This was the spectacle to rival all. The stage was set. We all sat on the edge of our seats, hoping, wishing, praying that our boys save us the embarrassment and bag that three points. And then he did it. Our hero, Siphiwe Tshabalala, scored the first goal of the tournament.
That game would be imprinted, not only in my heart but in the hearts of many South Africans forever. ‘I was actually a dancer at the Belville Velodrome Fan Park. We performed weekly before all the major games, like the opening match between South Africa and Mexico, and did a 30-minute performance before each game while an amazing South African artist performed,’ Kaylin Graham, wife of Cape Umoya United midfielder Travis Graham, recalls. ‘We even did one with local band Freshly Ground. My husband (then boyfriend) watched me dance at almost every show! My favourite memory was walking to the waterfront with my husband to watch the World Cup final. The excitement and “gees” in the air was inexplicable.’
I watched almost all the games with my family. We’d have ‘braais’ (barbecues) and invite close relatives over on important game days. My family is very big on football so we get competitive and go all out for (mostly) our European teams and respective countries In fact, my love affair with the beautiful game started with my family in the 2006 World Cup, watching Brazil against France in the quarter-final. I was 11 and Ronaldinho Gaúcho’s ginga style of play sold me for life and I have been a Brasileiro, through the very high highs and extremely low lows, ever since.
The World Cup has left a legacy of passion, dedication, persistence, perseverance, and determination for our country, the exact ‘gees’ (spirit) Kaylin is referring to. However, it also left a legacy of constant fighting to be heard and proving our worth in this industry as women.
Pre 2010, young girls were unconsciously socialised to believe that football was a sport only boys played, so schools were not interested in making provisions for girls’ soccer teams and, therefore, not many girls played. Only recently have parents started encouraging their daughters to play and are more accepting of the idea that their girls could make a living from the sport. My now five-year-old niece has been parading around in a Liverpool kit since she was three and just recently secured the goalkeeper position our local soccer academy. I am her biggest fan. Her older brother eats, sleeps, and breathes soccer and dreams of playing in the Premier League one day, mind you, he was only three years old when we hosted the World Cup. Their parents support them equally and do not place more importance on my nephew’s footballing career than my niece’s.
The writer’s niece
However, although an encouraging word from your parents to play football is indeed a step in the right direction, it is still not enough to scrape the surface of men’s football in our country. The first South African Football Association (SAFA) National Women’s League was only launched in August 2019 (Women’s Month in our country), nine years after the men’s World Cup was hosted in our country. Although the initiative was set to celebrate these fierce ladies in our special month, controversy surrounded the league as SAFA had confirmed that they did not have an official sponsor and hadn’t secured prize money or broadcasting rights. What was supposed to be a momentous occasion for women’s football in South Africa was not even televised for us to witness and celebrate, as women. It felt as though our girls and their league were an afterthought.
With Covid-19 bringing so much uncertainty, the league can potentially restart in August, it is hard to say whether there would or could have been any positive changes in terms of more coverage and the financial security of female players. Last year, SAFA President, Danny Jordaan, announced that the women’s league would not be a professional league, unless the Premier Soccer League (PSL) adopted it, which ultimately means that players would not have any financial security.
There does not seem to be any urgency for the professionalisation of the league by the PSL either. Perhaps the league would have been televised this year, as Jordaan seemed adamant to have the media buy into it as it would help the league grow. The Daily Maverick reported on Jordaan, ‘That is the problem that we have as a country. We want these matches to be televised because central to strengthening the commercial value and character of this league is television. Television is linked to sponsorship and we continue to work very hard, with the hope that in the next month or so we will be able to get television coverage.’
All these factors; lack of media coverage, no financial stability and not being able to play at a professional level , leads me to believe that men’s football in our country, is prioritised and football culture is reserved only for the men’s league. All PSL games are televised, players have financial security, get to play professionally, and have more support from fans. The men’s national team has a following of roughly 441,700 followers on Twitter, while our women’s national team Banyana-Banyana has a whopping 344,000 less, at roughly 97,600 followers.
To add fuel to the fire, in March 2017, the first female to grace the cover of the 479th issue of local soccer magazine, Kick-Off Magazine, was Minnie Dlamini, host of football TV show Soccer Zone. The cover had the beautiful presenter wearing a blood-red blazer with a low cut white bustier and a large gold necklace framing her décolletage. It was highly controversial among fans who questioned why a player from the women’s national team was not on the cover instead and had them questioning whether sex sells in this industry. What should have been a truly momentous moment for women in the football industry was instead an anti-climax.
My hope is that in the next couple of years, the issues in this article would be irrelevant. That more women are respected in their areas of expertise in football. I would love to see our female footballers play in their own professional league, with all the benefits their male counterparts receive – enough media coverage, sponsorship, equal pay, and backing. I also hope that females in sports media not be viewed as sexual objects but powerhouses who know what they are talking about and are able to take over this male-dominated industry.
Words and images Sian-Adey Hill