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Will it really be Africa's World Cup?

Ben James Ben James | 10:23 UK time, Tuesday, 11 May 2010

Nelson Mandela with the World Cup TrophyOne month to go until the first football World Cup ever to be staged on African soil.

There were great celebrations and high expectations from some that the 2010 tournament really would be a World Cup for Africans .

And although in Cape Town to see the trophy last week - which was also pictured with a certain former President - there is some disquiet over whether ordinary people will actually benefit from the tournament.

Fears that high ticket prices would exclude fans from the African continent seem to have been borne out by .

Reports over the last few days -  and  - look at how local vendors, hoping for a much-needed bonanza, are being cleared from around the grounds in favour of FIFA-accredited traders.

A South African airline had this  pulled because of the oblique reference to the tournament, thanks to strict marketing rules.

that, in his view, the tournament won't help address any of the country's problems - indeed, he thinks journalists might even feel deterred from mentioning them.

Will the "Republic of FIFA" override the Republic of South Africa, as one newspaper there put it?

Or is control from the marketing men an obvious consequence of staging the greatest football show on earth?

And it is a fallacy to think that the World Cup, in the end, can be anything other than a football tournament?

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