'Where' will FIFA World Cup take place in June?

South Africa Tourism estimates only about 300 - 350 000 people will physically travel to SA to watch games. Others say SA will be lucky in the current economic climate to get anywhere close to 300 000 visitors in June and July 2010.

Difficult task, challenging experience

It's a difficult task because, as the South Africans quickly figured out, working with the Swiss-based FIFA organisation is quite a challenging experience.

FIFA, understandably, likes to standardise. Its aim is to ensure the same level of quality at all levels of the tournament - from the colour and texture of the grass on the football pitches to the type of advertising displayed for kilometres around all 11 stadiums.

For many in SA, that means 'whitewashing'.

Not really see any difference

Critics here complain that the billions of people who watch the world cup football on television will probably not really see any difference between this year's world cup in Africa and the tournament that was played in Germany. The televised games will all be a sanitised, FIFA-endorsed football la-la land, they say.

So how does SA capitalise on this very narrow margin of opportunity?

The world cup has been billed as the ultimate marketing opportunity for the country - but is it really? Are the billions of dollars spent on selling SA to first-time visiting sports fans worth it? These are all questions South Africans are wondering out a loud.

The real measure

The real measure for SA is not how many people get on a plane, wearing their brightly coloured football shirts. Instead, it is how the country manages to sell itself, within the tightly controlled parameters of FIFA's restrictions, to the 26 billion viewers sitting at home watching the games on their televisions.

• Adapted from original blog post published on 14 April 2010.