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They have four years, now, before South Africa hosts the next soccer World Cup. Most of their players are professionally employed by leading clubs in Europe and don't seem to care unduly about the national side as players did a couple of generations ago when they played for the love of their game and for the love of their country. In four years' time, some of them might be too old for the side anyway. For all that, Botswana deserves credit for its victory, and South Africa would do well to take a leaf out of Botswana's soccer book by getting a good coach to train young players who will be ready for the next World Cup in four years' time. Football is the national game in South Africa, as it I suppose, is in Botswana and indeed throughout Africa and in much of Europe, where it is called the beautiful game, though I'm not sure why? It's not only the players who want to retire with reasonably fat bank accounts, but also the officials; they want even more to do so and are busy working out how best to profit from the 2010 World Cup. They will have to compete with World Football's FIFA, however, because it is apparently the World Body which profits from these events each four years, not the local national football association. And FIFA knows best how to do that. One has to ask whether the South African officials deserve the World Cup? Is it their doing or Mandela's? If they've made such a mess to date, how can one expect them to do all the complex things in preparation, and - above all, how to produce nationally motivated, physically qualified, top-level footballers - for 2010? The preoccupation with money is almost unavoidable, and universal, in the South Africa of today. (One suspects by the way that it is infecting Botswana, and our footballers, too, though not quite as much). Since I was able to re-enter South Africa in 1990 after thirty years of banishment, I've observed the development of a society that is increasingly pre-occupied with personal privilege and advantage, rather than the ethnic privilege and advantage of the past. This has surely played its part in developing the commercial attitudes that many of our sportsmen display. Black economic empowerment is not about uplifting the poor, but enriching the high and mighty, especially people with political clout. I'm not quite sure how it works, and how Cyril Ramaphosa and Tokyo Sexwale became almost billionaires after being politically sidelined by Thabo Mbeki, and how he managed to sideline these politically powerful men - at the time - in the first place. What I am sure of is that it is playing its part in continuing the present divide between the poor - of whom there are tens of millions, mainly black - and a multi-racial class of the rich. Living alongside South Africa has its benefits and its disadvantages, but it is also spreading its attitudes around the region. Whatever! One might hope that the South Africans will see the value of making the 2010 event one in which other SADC countries can play a role, each offering a match at one or other level. The Football Associations of SADC ought to be able to collectively uplift the quality of playing football in our region for the love of the game more than for the love of money, though I suspect that that's too much to ask. It has to be both, nowadays. Together we may be able to develop stronger attitudes of sportsmanship and love of the games we play. Professional sport is here to stay, whether one likes it or not. The challenge is to tie the earnings of sportsmen to their excellence in playing game, and their love of p1aying the game. That is what will give sport the beauty that soccer claims for itself. The great names football include Pele, of times gone by, and professionals, they play the game as if they love it. That's the challenge for Southern African professional footballers. They may notice how rugby players love their game, and want to be chosen to play for their countries, with pride, not just for the love of money. Again, whether we like it or not, sport is now commercial and professional in almost all its branches, and it demands a lot of time from those who play it, for club matches, provincial or district matches and for one's country. For the first ten years of one's adult life - these days - sport is for the best players' full time. In the old days, they had to ask for leave and sometimes lose pay, unless the employers were also sports-mad, and/or able to profit somehow from the performance of their employees. Some employers use advertising revenues to do that. Let's ensure that all sportsmen play for the love of the games, whatever other reasons they may have for doing so!!
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