KRUGER NATIONAL PARK Part 1 - Mbombela Stadium

Recently back to Johannesburg after three months in Manica, Mozambique, James, Armando and I had the chance to go to Kruger National Park, one of the biggest South African pride. Ready for a three-day trip in the wildlife, I noticed a few things during this amazing experience. Let's start with the Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit.

The emerged part

After a few hours of road trip towards the Kruger National Park, we stopped for lunch in a city called Nelspruit, part of the Mpumalanga Province.

Just before reaching the actual town, Alec Norton, former Gapper working for Youth Zones now and our guide in Kruger, showed us one of the 2010 South African World Cup Stadium from the road.

With its original architecture and proximity with the famous Kruger National Park, the stadium was built in Nelspruit to boost the local economy. The actual design of the stadium is full of reference to the Kruger and can host 43 500 people. As you can see in the pictures above, the pylons look like orange giraffes and the empty seats like the white and black skin of a zebra. The stadium hosted four games during the World Cup. That’s for the emerged part of what we saw.

Mataffin Township

From the road, you can only see the stadium, and particularly the pylons, but there is something right next to it that no one can see when you are in your car. In fact, the stadium was built in a township called Mataffin. With approximately 5 000 people living there, the World Cup was supposed to bring water, electricity and better facilities for people to live in better conditions.

In 2007, when the South African authorities started the project, the township stopped the construction several times to protest against the government. In the first place, Mataffin reacted because authorities were starting to use schools as FIFA offices without replacing them anywhere else. Hundreds of young students remained without education for weeks. The municipality then decided to move the students into temporary schools. However, the conditions were unacceptable for the students. With the air conditioning broken and the fans vandalized, the hot weather made the studies horrible and impossible. How can people focus and study in these conditions ? They can’t.

Promises, promises …

Mataffin people said yes to the construction of the stadium on the same territory as them in exchange of water and electricity for the township. Six months after the end of the World Cup, promises made by the government have not been fulfilled. Water only came into the township after a series of new strikes. But the police retaliated the strikes by firing their guns randomly and by coming into houses to assault people.

With the money invested in the stadium, the township expected some of it to improve their lives. In fact, the stadium cost one million rand (114 million euros) to build. Also, the annual maintenance cost for the stadium is about 1.5 million euros. Consequently, since the end of the World Cup, six years ago, the South African authorities had to pay around 9 million euros for the maintenance only.

9 million euros for the maintenance of an abandoned stadium hosting less than 20 games in a year. Everything while peole are living in a township without electricity or water only 400 meters away from it. When the stadium was built, no one thought of linking it to the township for water or electricity. Or maybe they thought about it, but nothing was done.

Blood Scandals

Some people from the municipally and the area tried to tell the world. Sammy Mpatlanga, provincial arts and culture spokenperson, and Jimmy Mohlala, Nelspruit municipality speaker, were murdered by professional assassins when they started to raise their voices against the injustice of the situation. Corruption, greed and selfishness won once again in many ways during the World Cup. We are currently starting to be aware of all the things that happened there and more will come. Unfortunately for the world, same stories will be reported from the 2014 Brazilian World Cup and 2016 Olympics, as well as the 2018 Russia World Cup or 2022 Qatar World Cup. Football is brilliant, but when it comes to big competitions, money always wins. And people suffers because of it.

Is one month of competition worthing it ?

#Mozambique #SouthAfrica