This article analyses South Africa's unsuccessful bid to host the 2006 FIFA World Cup. A discussion of the bid's leading organizers, corporate sponsors, and marketing tactics provides the basis for a critical examination of the policy and philosophy behind the bid campaign. In doing so, the author critiques the World Cup's projected costs and benefits and assesses the tournament's impact on the distribution of wealth in post-apartheid South Africa. This local case study sheds light on football's economic and political centrality in contemporary African societies and identifies South Africa's unusual place in football's world marketplace.
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Peter Alegi (2001) studied this question.