2010 FIFA World Cup and the SA industry
CONFEDERATIONS CUP:
Why so little excitement?
June/ July 2009
The economic and infrastructure benefits of hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup are incalculable — and when it is calculated, it involves figures with a heck of a lot of noughts. Why then is there so little enthusiasm amongst South Africans for the greatest show on earth? Asks TRUDI DU TOIT. Could it be that FIFA’s strict marketing rules had backfired?
2010 good news
» The 2010 FIFA World Cup is expected to contribute an additional R21-bn to SAs GDP, according to the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. R13-bn is expected to come from direct investment and R9.5-bn from tourist spend.
» The 483 000 foreign tourists expected to visit SA because of the World Cup are expected to spend a total of R5-bn. Research by Grant Thornton shows that the average soccer tourist will spend about a quarter of their budget on accommodation and nearly half on food, transport and entertainment. Shopping malls are expected to be the main beneficiaries of the R1 400 per day foreign tourists could spend and the R750 per day generated by domestic visitors travelling to games.
» About 4 000 unemployed South Africans had been trained to work as volunteers at events in the host cities during the Confederations Cup, gaining valuable skills that would help them secure employment later. More volunteers will be trained for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
» The National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF) contributed R81-m to the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ Legacy Programme to build 27 FIFA one star artificial turfs over the next three years in rural areas and townships around SA. This will promote the SAFA grassroots programme by providing synthetic surfaces, which reduces the cost of upkeep, in disadvantaged areas. It is proposed that a clubhouse and office for use by the local football community will also be built at each facility.
» Nearly 17 000 extra police officers are being recruited and trained in the two years before the World Cup and the South African Police Service (SAPS) will spend R665-m on the procurement of special equipment, which should help to keep SA safer after the 2010 event.
» Bar some taxi operators, SA urban commuters are keenly looking forward to the Bus and Rapid Transit (BRT) public transport system becoming fully operational, with the first route, from Soweto to Johannesburg, opening in time for the Confederations Cup. In addition, international airport upgrades will hopefully be used by all the many foreign tourists that will be visiting us in future.
» A FIFA survey conducted in May showed that 94% of South Africans are proud that we are hosting the competition and believe in the long-term benefits; 92% believe that hosting the competition will lead to an upgrade in infrastructure, notably public transport, roads and telecommunications; 92% believe hosting the FIFA World Cup will improve SA’s image abroad; 96% believe it will boost tourism and 83% are confident that we will be ready to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
We were in Beijing 18 months before the 2008 Olympic Games. Everywhere you went, stalls and stores were selling Olympic Games mascots, decals, keyrings and other memorabilia. There was no doubt that the Beijingers were extremely proud that they would host the Olympics the following year. And they made sure that every visitor remembered this by buying at least one souvenir.
Three months before the 2010 FIFA World Cup curtain raiser, the Confederations Cup, the Johannesburg lamp posts were covered with posters advertising the IPL Cricket tournament. People rushed to buy tickets and lined the streets of Cape Town to welcome the team managers and players in an event that is really — to be brutally honest — no more than Indian county cricket presented by Bollywood. But, the fun is contagious and cricket fervour grips even those who don’t know a six from a four, a googly from a yorker, or a leg-stump from an off-stump.
Not one football poster is to be seen. Sepp Blatter visits and is not amused.
A week before the Confederations Cup, the Tournament of Champions, a woman phones a radio station and asks: “What is this Confederations Cup business that people are talking about?” On another programme, a radio show host admits that he is clueless about what the Confederations Cup stands for, and invites a soccer journalist to come and explain.
Nationwide, the interest level is perilously low. Of the 640 000 tickets issued, 200 000 are unsold four days before the tournament. Of the 440 000 sold, 55% were bought by corporate companies. Clearly, the rest of the world is not lining up to attend the dress rehearsal as 95% of the tickets were bought by South Africans. Luckily, the actual event is generating a lot more interest with more than 1.6-m tickets requested for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. In the first phase 630 000 tickets were sold — 50% to fans in 188 other countries. SA residents bought 301 601, with most international sales to the US (73 441), the UK (42 907), Germany(30 880), Australia (15 038) and Italy (6 063). The second phase of ticket applications will remain open until 16 November. Visit the ticketing application site on www.FIFA.com for more information.
It is not due to a lack of information. The media had just about reached saturation point writing about football, FIFA, the World Cup, Confederations Cup, what Sepp Blatter said and what Sepp says he never said, milestones we’ve reached and those we forget about, teams qualifying and players dropped — for more than four years now, hardly a month had gone by without at least one FIFA media briefing. Reporters and news editors struggle to find a new angle for an interesting story, many give up.
Nor is there a lack of effort to drum up support government departments who all have to launch at least one 2010 project.
» The Department of Education (with the LOC and Sport & Recreation) called theirs My 2010 School Adventure campaign, in which each province ‘adopted’ a Confederations Cup team. Schools in the province teach learners about the culture, language, history etc. of their team’s country and more than 8 000 schools from 81 districts were involved in district, regional and provincial football playoffs — before about 1 000 pupils from around the country competed in the Schools Confederations Cup finals in Johannesburg in May.
» The Department of Home Affairs is issuing free “event visas” to allow football fans coming to SA for the 2010 FIFA World Cup to use dedicated counters at airports and give them pre-clearance before they arrive.
» In April, then Deputy President Baleka Mbete (in her capacity as Chairperson of Government’s 2010 Inter-Ministerial Committee) undertook an open top bus ride from SAFA House headquarters to the Maponya Mall in Soweto to drum up support for the Confederations Cup, stopping at the Baragwanath taxi rank and Jabulani Mall on the way. Her entourage, which included the official 2010 mascot Zakumi, football ambassadors Philemon Masinga and Kalusha Bwalya and Organising Committee CEO Danny Jordaan, was greeted in Soweto by a Vuvuzela chorus and former captain Lucas Radebe.
» The Department of Finance allocated an additional R1.9-bn to the 2010 FIFA World Cup stadiums development grant and R508-m in 2009/10 and R210-m in 2010/11 to the host city operating grant, aimed at assisting cities with the hosting of the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup and the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
In May, SA Tourism, the International Marketing Council, and the 2010 Organising Committee (OC) launched a campaign to market the event by involving all South Africans. The focus is on encouraging all of us to become champions who will make the 2010 event a reality and a stunning success — in other words, welcome the world next year as hospitable and generous hosts.
It is sad that it is necessary to conduct a campaign to tell South Africans that they need to celebrate an event of such magnitude. After all, we love to celebrate and take pride in national events. We were all tremendously proud that we could host an IPL cricket tournament with all the glitz and glam at such short notice and we supported the event by filling stadiums. We all wore green and gold and celebrated in the streets when the Springboks won the IRB Rugby World Cup. We hugged and shouted — some even cried with joy — when we were awarded the right to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
May history repeat itself!
» Hosting the 1992 Olympic Games created an economic legacy that lasted almost 15 years for Barcelona as it led to a boom in tourism and employment for the host city. During the 1980’s the decline in manufacturing and work around the docks took a heavy toll, but infrastructure development for the Olympic Games and tourism development, transformed the city’s economy to specialise in financial services, business services, real estate, health care, public administration and education. The Games generated an operating profit of over $300-m. During the next decade the unemployment rate was almost halved — despite the economic downturn that affected Europe in the early 1990s. Barcelona’s tourism growth averaged nearly 20% until 1995.
» Before hosting the 1998 FIFA World Cup France was labelled “the most racially troubled country in Europe” as xenophobia threatened to tear it apart. The French team — many suffering verbal abuse before the tournament because they came from immigrant backgrounds — united the country and became national heroes when they won the tournament. They were credited with promoting tolerance and a sense of belonging amongst the immigrant population.
» From Humorless to Carefree: Transforming 82 Million in 31 Days is how the Spiegel summed up Germany’s brand transformation during the 2006 FIFA World Cup, says Dr. Nikolaus Eberl, author of the bestselling book Brand Ovation: How Germany won the World Cup of Nation Branding. It is well-known that the Germans were negative, critical and not overly supportive of the World Cup event — until the kick-off, when the whole nation transformed themselves into welcoming, happy, generous hosts… and forever changed their image abroad.
Why do we remain largely unmoved when the world’s champion football teams bring some of the world’s most celebrated players to play here?
Maybe the answer lies in the name of the event: it is the FIFA World Cup. FIFA appropriated and sold the rights to every possible aspect of the 2010 World Cup — even the names of our host cities, the name of our country and the year it will be held. I have not yet come across a face cream bearing the FIFA logo, but it is possible that it exists, for just about every other item has found a FIFA partner: accommodation, airlines, banking, caps, cell phones, computers, footwear, keyrings, retailing, ticketing… and so you can continue down the alphabet, the rights have been sold by FIFA.
Small wonder then that 2010 World Cup Organising Committee CEO Danny Jordaan can proudly announce that this has so far been the most lucrative World Cup ever: R25.6–bn worth of commercial and broadcasting rights had been sold a year before the event, the most sponsors had ever paid for a FIFA event. And that during a world wide economic downturn!
With a heavy legal hand landing on anybody who haven’t paid their dues daring to advertise anything containing the words football, soccer, World Cup, FIFA or host city, or any football-related images, it is not surprising that South Africans are wary of embracing the event. A Pretoria pub was taken to court for advertising World Cup 2010 on his roof, Metcash was taken to court for selling Astor 2010 pops. A website who registered a domain name suggestive of the World Cup, a company that designed a keyring with World Cup logos, a billboard with soccer balls instead of 0’s in the numeral 2010, are just a few examples of SA companies told by FIFA to back off the World Cup. (But, a shoe with the words 2010 — Why Wait is considered to be OK, even though Skye Footwear was granted FIFA licensing rights).
In contrast, the people of Beijing could take pride in hosting the Olympics, because it belonged to them. They could take ownership of the event, it was theirs to embrace, enjoy and showcase, because it was the BEIJING Olympics.
“The Merchandise Marks Act gives the trade and industry minister the power to designate major sporting events as protected events, argued FIFA’s lawyer Owen Dean. “By this means, ambush marketers can be prevented from competing unlawfully with FIFA by obtaining special promotional benefit from, or associating themselves with, the 2010 World Cup, without being sponsors.”
Protect sponsors
“By virtue of the large fees which sponsors of the tournament pay, it is essential that FIFA can guarantee and deliver exclusivity of advertising exposure to sponsors in their fields of business.” Damaging the relationship between FIFA and its sponsors by detracting from the exclusive rights given to sponsors could seriously damage FIFA and place the staging of the World Cup in jeopardy, Dean said.
So true. But what if FIFA compete with their own licensees?
The merchandisers who paid a hefty price for the right to manufacture product for the 2010 FIFA World Cup can hardly be overwhelmed by sales so far… especially after one chain (Edgars) was designated the official FIFA 2010 World Cup memorabilia retailer, leaving other retailers unsure about their rights to carry World Cup merchandise.
Now, these licensees are facing stiff competition from FIFA itself, who is not only launching their own range of branded clothing and merchandise, but also announced that they are developing a dedicated Event Range celebrating the 2010 FIFA World Cup! This range, to be sold exclusively via FIFA Official Stores and FIFA branded retail environments, will complement the existing 2010 FIFA World Cup SA licensed event merchandise ranges that will be available in general retail outlets, onsite at games, as well as in the FIFA Official Event Stores.
Global Brands, the FIFA Master Licensee (international), are launching the first FIFA Collections branded clothing range at a series of high-profile international trade shows over the next few months. It will comprise five separate ranges of apparel — 1904, Editions, Code, Essentials and Trophy — and will be sold from August in the more than 100 official FIFA stores to open during the next few years and in an extensive network of FIFA branded retail spaces in twelve countries.
Who can blame SA retailers if they are not jumping for joy at the prospect of making money out of the 2010 FIFA World Cup?
Especially if they are situated within a kilometre from a stadium (as in Green Point), in which case they could be prevented from trading on the days that games are played... and suffer losses during construction because customers find it difficult to gain access.
South African B&B and guest house owners could be luckier, because many refused to sign the accommodation contracts with FIFA’s designated accommodation provider, MATCH (yep, the same people who made the mess of the sale of the tickets for the World Cup in Japan and Korea). The snag was that if you sign up, you had to commit 90% of your available accommodation… at June-July 2007 prices plus 16%.
Now, as every South African knows, June-July are cheapie and specials months for accommodation and December 2007 rooms already cost 16% more than the June-July prices. You do not need a calculator to work out that Zurich-based MATCH would be able to sell these rooms to the thousands of tourists expected in June-July 2010 at a neat little profit. What’s more, MATCH can cancel rooms, without any penalty, as late as two weeks before the World Cup. No wonder SA Tourism CEO Moeketsi Mosola resigned in protest from the advisory board of MATCH at the beginning of November 2008.
In case you wondered, this accommodation contract is unique to South Africa, it did not surface in Germany, or any other country.
But, the catch in the plan is because the 2010 FIFA World Cup is a “protected Event” it will be difficult to advertise accommodation or any other service privately without using terms like host city, World Cup or the name of a host city plus 2010 in the same ad.
But. BIG BUT. If we shun the World Cup and everything it represents because of irritation with FIFA regulations, we’ll be cutting off our own noses, shooting ourselves in the foot and maiming ourselves in various other non-cliched ways. We’ve shown in the past that we can be creative and create opportunities. Our time HAS indeed come — and it is up to everyone to make the best use of it.
We’d love to hear good news stories about what the industry is doing to celebrate the 2010 FIFA (South Africa) World Cup.
