It was perhaps no surprise that Japan last week pulled out of hosting the Fifa Club World Cup, with the Asian country now experiencing its worst ever Covid-19 wave and under a state of emergency in the wake of it hosting the Olympics and Paralympics recently.
Fifa revealed that Japan’s football authority said it was “no longer in a position” to host the competition, which features the winners of the six continental club tournaments, as well as a team from the host nation, facing off in a money-spinning and fan-pleasing series of matches.
But that loss could be SA’s gain.
The SA Football Association (Safa) has confirmed it is interested in hosting the competition, continuing a tradition of stepping in at the last minute to take the reins of major international events.
Safa president Danny Jordaan confirmed to Associated Press (AP) that the country was keen on hosting the event and that “we’ll know our position by the end of the week”.
He was, AP said, expected to meet Fifa secretary-general Fatma Samoura in Lagos, Nigeria, to discuss the bid.
Only those who have received their Covid-19 shots should be allowed to attend, which could be a push that many of the vaccine-hesitant need to get them over the line.
While the government hasn’t yet endorsed or approved the intention to host, meetings are set to be held with sports and recreation minister Nathi Mthethwa.
Hosting the event is something all South Africans should support.
It offers, from a purely selfish point of view, a chance to have some sort of return to normalcy in a crazy, mixed-up world. It would show that we’re starting to adapt to the realities of the coronavirus and returning to some semblance of what it was like before the deadly pandemic ripped up everything we took for granted.
It could also be the push the nation’s sports and health administrators need to reopen live sport to fans. We’ve already missed the opportunity to watch the world-champion Springboks win a nail-biting series over the British and Irish Lions and we don’t want to miss another major international event. The Club World Cup represents an opportunity to open the turnstiles.
From a sporting point of view, hosting the event might force the Premier Soccer League’s hand to allow journalists into stadiums to cover matches. Bizarrely, reporters still aren’t allowed in, a situation that doesn’t make sense given they can attend CAF Champions League and Bafana Bafana matches.
But hosting the tournament is also a winner because it is likely Fifa will foot the bill. With Japan’s late withdrawal, the governing body will be desperate for a host it knows it can trust and that has done it in the past - and SA has certainly proven itself on those metrics.
We’ve shown before that we are excellent hosts, even at short notice. In 1996, when Bafana Bafana won the Africa Cup of Nations on home soil, the tournament was originally meant to take place in Kenya. We’ve also stepped in at short notice as recently in 2013 for the same tournament, when Libya pulled out late due to instability and unrest.
We might be bad at a lot of things, but we are good at hosting events. Fifa knows that.
Add to this that Kaizer Chiefs and Mamelodi Sundowns will be looking at the potential financial windfalls of the tournament taking place here. While it’s not yet certain who will represent SA as the host nation - either PSL champions Sundowns or CAF Champions League runners-up Chiefs - they know they’ll make bank, with just the tournament appearance fee for finishing last a cool $1m (R14.2m).
More than anything, though, hosting the tournament represents an emotional boost that the country so desperately needs. It would represent a glimmer of hope, when one has seemed so far away for the past 18 months.
But it also stands as an opportunity to make sure more people are vaccinated. Only those who have received their Covid-19 shots should be allowed to attend, which could be a push that many of the vaccine-hesitant need to get them over the line.
We do not want this to turn into a superspreader event, so health and social distancing protocols need to be in place. Stadiums should not be opened to full capacity and masks must be compulsory. It might be difficult to make it happen, but every effort needs to be made.
Opportunity is knocking on SA’s door and we should open up and let it in — as long as we do it safely.
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