South Africa.

[Wild Bill]

Last year we had a South African rugby team visit the school to talk to the kids and do some rugby training with them.

Down the end of the street is a hill covered with allotments for growing veg etc., complete with ramshackle tin huts,one of the teachers recently told me that when the SA rugby lads were looking round,one of them pointed to the allotments and asked,"who lives in those houses?"

[Pondgirl]

And??

[Agent Sizzle]

Certainly brings it home how fortunate most people are, at least in terms of shelter and material security.

[Pondgirl]

I know when Alex visited SA a few years ago he was appalled at the conditions that so many people had to live in. They would find living in an allotment in Cumbria absolute bliss I should think.

[Wild Bill]

And??

Obviously in your mind I am being a racist bigot as usual.

My point was it shows how bad it still must be in SA that people must be living in tin huts,(most probably blacks),they had the money to host the world cup but not to build houses for their own people.

[Agent Sizzle]

True, Bill. I remember watching some of the World Cup coverage and the mini documentaries and background reports they did - there was loads of people living in the kind of accommodation you describe. They had no electricity, poor access to water, and yet just a short distance away was this massive stadium. It just seemed so wrong.

[Pondgirl]

And??

Obviously in your mind I am being a racist bigot as usual.

My point was it shows how bad it still must be in SA that people must be living in tin huts,(most probably blacks),they had the money to host the world cup but not to build houses for their own people.

I have never accused you of being a racist or a bigot or a racist bigot. i don't even know how you think that I could construe your post as being racist. I just didn't lnow what point you were making, but thank you for clarifying.

Everyone has become incredibly precious today.

[Boy Perkins]

The powers that be in SA were only too well aware that by hosting the world cup they would be opening the eyes of the world to the many problems that they still have in that country.

They have made a lot of progress and there are many working to maintain that effort. It cannot be changed overnight and we are only too well aware of the problems that most of Black Africa has faced within the last 40 years during periods of change.

There are many places in Africa that are no better or even worse than SA. They need our help rather than our criticism.

[Agent Sizzle]

I don't doubt that it did open eyes, BP - but have those eyes now just turned away?

Eyes were also turned away when local traders were forbidden from selling food and drink near World Cup venues - and punished if they disobeyed, even though selling is their only livelihood. And what about the huge profit FIFA made from, among other things, reserving huge blocks of accommodation only to dump the rooms back on the hotel owners at the very last minute? So many things ...

[Boy Perkins]

Don't disagree Sizz; and I certainly would not feel comfortable living in that society even as a privileged European. But I don't think condemnation is going to achieve much. The sporting boycott worked with cricket and rugby, those being the sports of the whites. The blacks did appreciate having the World Cup. But now the blacks have power the name of the game is different.

As for FIFA, well they are no better than the IOC as money making circuses...