From 15 March and until a permanent solution is found, the Chairman of the Board of Play the Game, Jens Brinch, will work as acting director in close cooperation with Play the Game’s Conference Manager, Maria Suurballe.

“I started preparing the first international conference in the autumn of 1996.  After three successful conferences, Play the Game became an independent institution with a public grant in 2004, and I felt privileged to be appointed director. However, I always had the exit in mind,” Andersen says.

He feels that the moment is right since Play the Game’s existence is now ensured by a public grant which runs until the end of 2011. Also, the seventh Play the Game conference in 2011 looks secure with high quality bids from Germany, Slovenia and South Africa. This leaves time for a stable transition, Andersen believes.

“An institution like Play the Game which aspires to constantly qualify public debate and promote values like democracy, transparency and freedom of expression should not depend on one person, and fortunately this is no longer the case for our institution. It is the right time for me as well as for Play the Game to seek new inspiration.”

In the first instance, Jens Sejer Andersen has been granted up to six months leave to be cured for what remains of a stress disorder that has bothered him for some time.

“Like many others I have had to face the undesirable fact that there is a limit to everything. My body is sending warning signs that I can no longer ignore. Also it is no secret that I am much more a communicator than a manager, and as the outside interest in Play the Game grows, so does the demand for managerial and administrative skills. Basically, I leave my job with optimism and look forward to returning with renewed energy and to contributing to Play the Game from another position.”

The board of Play the Game has accepted the director’s decision with regret, but also with understanding, and Chairman Jens Brinch says the board is ready for the task:

“Our first challenge is to ensure that the 2011 conference will be delivered at the same excellent level as previously. We owe that to our future partners and to ourselves, and we are quite confident that this will work out well. Secondly, we must find a structure for Play the Game that can sustain the continued development of our conference, networking and communication activities for the years after 2011, and we will take the time we need to carry this process through.”

To see street children with absolutely nothing left to lose, not even their dignity, is absolutely heart breaking; yet it is a reality that many South Africans have come to live with every day. They also have to live with the fear of street crime, including pick pocketing, mugging, smash-and-grabs at traffic lights, and other crimes of desperation that are committed by these people on a regular basis.

These lost children are a result of a number of social factors: parental neglect; losing family to HIV/AIDS; drug addiction; gang membership; abject poverty; and more often a combination of these factors. It will take much investment by the government into housing, healthcare, education and skills generation for street-people and the homeless to see the quality of life they deserve.

Voluntary relocation programme or World Cup ‘clean-up operation’?
The City of Cape Town’s latest housing initiative is to relocate street children and homeless people from the city centre to the Symphony Way Temporary Relocation Area, better known as Blikkiesdorp (‘block town’), 30km from the central business district.

Critics are calling the plan a ‘clean-up operation’ for the World Cup, while the municipal government defends it as a voluntary and humane relocation programme that happens to coincide with the tournament.

The "2010 Street People Readiness Plan" is set to run from May-July 2010, but the details will only be made public in the coming weeks. City officials claim street children and homeless people will be ‘treated with respect and dignity’ during the relocation. Speaking to the Cape Times, city councilor J.P. Smith explained that the City of Cape Town had set aside housing in the temporary relocation area for 160 people, and that all those who will be moved there have volunteered to do so after ‘three years of counseling’.

Blikkiesdorp, one of 223 informal settlements in the wider Cape Town area, consists of 1,300 3m x 6m corrugated zinc block-shaped structures, fenced in by barbed wire. According to the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign’s website, ‘Police and Apartheid era riot vehicles are stationed (permanently) at the only entrance…’

In an article for the Mail & Guardian, city spokesperson Kylie Hatton claims that Blikkiesdorp is an ‘emergency area in terms of a national housing programme for people in emergency living conditions’. She also claims that is favourably comparable to other settlements in terms of access to services and nearby clinics, as well as ‘shelter, environment and density’.

However, previous residents have described it as a ‘dumping ground’ and complained that it is unsafe, dirty and drug-ridden. Incidents of xenophobic tension have plagued the settlement in the past, and healthcare volunteers and food resources are reported to be lacking.

Many South Africans, homeless and homeowners alike, are waiting to see whether the "2010 Street People Readiness Plan" will offer street people more than a temporary solution to their problems - at least one that will last longer than the duration of the 2010 World Cup.

Seven years into his uphill struggle against corruption in the International Federation of Volleyball (FIVB), Mario Goijman from Argentina has finally received financial compensation from FIVB. The federation has agreed to reimburse the Argentinian for part of his legal expenses in return for Goijman dropping his civil suit against FIVB.

The settlement is the first and small move in a case that began in 2002 when Goijman filed charges with a court in Lausanne against the then FIVB president Ruben Acosta and his secretary general Jean-Pierre Seppey for forgery and mismanagement of federation funds.

In 2002, Goijman was president of the Argentine Volleyball Federation that had organised the Men's Volleyball World Cup in 2002. A successful event, everyone agreed  - but the FIVB refused to pay the organisers in Argentina their share of FIVB's income from television broadcasting of the championships which left the organising committee with severe debts. 

Incensed by this betrayal, Goijman began looking into the financial affairs of the international volleyball federation and uncovered several examples of corruption and mismanagement of federation funds. The most serious case was an attempt to cover up that president Ruben Acosta had secured himself an amount of approximately six million US dollars in personal commissions on television contracts he signed on behalf of the FIVB.

When Goijman voiced his concerns about this case to the FIVB, he was promptly expelled from both national and international volleyball. And when the other members of the board of the Argentine Volleyball Federation protested against FIVB's treatment of Goijman, they were expelled too.

Goijman took the case to court in Switzerland - a case he eventually lost in 2006 - and at great personal costs he also started campaigning internationally against the corruption and bad governance of the FIVB. A campaign that earned him the Play the Game Award in 2005.

UEFA has agreed to make a number of concessions to its new financial fair play system aimed at stabilizing losses at clubs across Europe.

The concessions have been secured by the European Club Association (ECA) and include a phased introduction of the scheme. Instead of starting in 2012, a three-year transition period will begin that same year and the mandatory scheme will not be fully operational until 2015, when clubs will be expected to break even.

"We have clubs that are losing £100 million a year and if we go on in this style, clearly we will have problems,” said ECA chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge yesterday (Tuesday March 2) at the Soccerex conference in Manchester.

“We have some trouble in the economy and in the football industry and it was a good moment to intervene [by UEFA with the fair play scheme]. We agreed with the breakeven criteria and that non-overdue payables need to be faced immediately.”

The ECA’s general assembly was held in Manchester to coincide with Soccerex and 93 clubs from all 53 UEFA members attended and eventually reached unanimous agreement on the new scheme.

The ECA, which was only set up two years ago to replace the unrecognized G14 lobby group confined solely to Europe’s major clubs, also agreed introducing a cap on squads at 25 players but with unlimited use of players under 21 to increase opportunities.

The ECA also wants to try and combat the impact of agents. David Gill, the chief executive of Manchester United and member of the ECA, was also at Soccerex. He said: “Players agents contribute a lot to inflation in football. The details have got to be worked out but essentially we’re moving to a more simplified system.”

The small print of the ECA’s deal with UEFA over the introduction of the financial fair play proposals also appears to need defining.

UEFA’s existing Club Financial Control Panel, which was formally set up six months ago to oversee the body’s club licensing programme, will manage the financial fair play system but the rules have not yet been finalized completely.

UEFA is set to give more ground to Europe’s leading clubs after disclosing that the board of a new company set up to optimise commercial revenue will be opened up to representatives of the continent’s clubs.

Speaking at the Soccerex conference in Manchester, David Taylor, chief executive officer of UEFA Events, said: “[UEFA] needs to improve its institutional relationship with clubs and the board membership will be extended to clubs. We need to improve our dialogue with the clubs.”

A handful of top clubs agitated for years over a potential breakaway European League until being persuaded to join a new European Clubs Association (ECA), which is chaired by ex-Germany captain, Karl Heinz Rummenigge.

UEFA Events has only just been set up and so far has just six board members: UEFA president Michel Platini and five other senior UEFA executives, including Taylor, who promised details on the inclusion of European clubs later this year.

The disclosure seemed to take ECA members at the conference by surprise but Jose Maria Cruz Andres, the vice president of Sevilla FC and member of an ECA committee looking into stability of European clubs, welcomed the news.

“Obviously something has changed at UEFA and that is good,” said Cruz Andres speaking a few hours after Taylor’s revelation.

However, Taylor appeared to rule out any wholesale offloading of TV rights for major international competitions or the Champions League and Europa League to subscription television channels that big clubs may seek to try and maximise revenue. Choosing his words carefully, Taylor told the conference: “We want to optimise revenue generation, not maximise it. In some instances, we could get more money if we sold everything to pay TV but we need to work within the parameters of the football organisational side [of UEFA].”

Taylor’s presentation gave the first glimpse into the financial position of UEFA events, which has taken control of commercial rights’ sales for the European body’s competition.

UEFA Events will have annual revenues of EUR 1.4 billion on a normal year but this is expected to rise to EUR 2.5 billion during a year that featured a European Championship, such as Euro 2012 in Poland and the Ukraine.

The European Championship, Champions League and Europa League are all profitable unlike UEFA‘s other two competitions, the UEFA Futsal Championship and the amateur UEFA Nations Cup.

Changing the UEFA Cup into the Europa League has produced “financial results double what we were seeing before,” added Taylor, who added: “In the next cycle, we don’t expect flat growth, we expect good growth in the figures we achieved in the last cycle.“ Revenue from the Champions League is expected to surge a third from EUR 820 million in 2006/09 to EUR 1,115 million in 2009/12. Taylor expects interest to continue to grow in Asia, where UEFA estimates that 387 million of the 1.25 billion worldwide viewing audience for the Champions League is derived.

Government ministers, FIFA officials and other stakeholders are expecting the 2010 World Cup to benefit the South African economy in a number of ways: through increased employment, a rise in tourism, generation of a good reputation for the country, investment in green energy and improved city infrastructure – to mention a few.

However, many participants in the local economy have had to adapt to new demands, FIFA regulations or government legislation, and these may have a potentially negative effect on many local businesses and industries.

For example, while increased costs of flights may allow cash-strapped airlines to make a quick buck, many businesspeople who commute via plane to various cities within South Africa will no longer afford to conduct their business for a 6-week period before, during and immediately after the 2010 World Cup.

Short-sighted thinking
Barrie Jarrett, CEO of TEAMtalk Media, a British-owned sports digital media company based in Cape Town, believes that short-term inflated pricing of flights, hotels, and even beer will also drive potential tourists to look for cheaper holiday destinations in future.

He says, “Why would a British tourist come all the way back to South Africa [following the World Cup] expecting to pay the same price for everything as he does in the UK, when he can get everything much cheaper in, say, a country like Bulgaria?”

Besides this short-sighted thinking, Jarrett also mentions that the South African Rand is too strong at the moment against the British Pound, Euro and US Dollar, and that this exchange rate will seem less attractive to foreign tourists, “Where it should R15 to the British Pound, it's R11.”

‘2010 Soccer World Cup Liquor Policy’
Meanwhile the service industry might also have to accommodate ’draconian’ government legislation. A local newspaper, Cape Times, recently published a report stating that any public establishment screening World Cup matches, such as bars, pubs and restaurants, might have to pay approximately €500 for a special liquor licence.

The ‘2010 Soccer World Cup Liquor Policy’, published on January 18 by the Minister of Trade and Industry, is being called into question by a legal expert on liquor regulation, Marius Blom, on the grounds that “the proposed bill was contrary to the provisions of the constitution and that the department had gone beyond the boundaries of its powers”.

Relocation of informal traders
Informal traders have not escaped the effects of the World Cup either. While local governments have invested in informal trading infrastructure, traders at the Sunday market next to the Green Point Stadium in Cape Town – who have been operating on the site for years - were forced to relocate during the renovation of the stadium and for the duration of the tournament, often to the detriment of their livelihood.

Similarly, in Durban, street traders have to accommodate FIFA host city by-laws regarding ambush marketing (marketing by association and marketing by intrusion), illegal advertising, and prohibited trading areas.

Many traders have not been granted permits to trade near the stadium, and they will have to carefully ensure that none of their products are in any way different from ‘objects that they are not known to trade’.

Local industries feel neglected
There has also been a large amount of publicity around the fact that World Cup memorabilia, including merchandise emblazoned with the World Cup mascot Zakumi, is being imported from other countries such as China.

Represented by trade union Cosatu, workers are angry at the fact that overseas manufacture of clothing, flags, and even buses and beer, will not benefit local industries.

In response, a representative of the Global Brands group – FIFA’s exclusive international licensee – told Cape Times that the company was “committed to ensuring South Africans benefited from the World Cup” and was utilising the services of 38 licensed local companies that employed over 13,000 South Africans.

Muhamed Bin Hammam, president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) promises that Asia will present a candidate to run against Sepp Blatter when FIFA elects its president in 2011. Whether the Asian challenge will come from Bin Hammam himself is not yet sure, but according to Bin Hammam, Asian contenders are ready to attempt to break the 12-year-long presidency of Blatter.

In Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, Bin Hammam stated that the post as president of the International Football Federation should be limited to two terms.
“I genuinely believe eight years is enough for every president to focus on football,” he said according to The Guardian. “After that, he’s looking after everything else other than football.”

73 year-old Sepp Blatter, who has held the post as FIFA President for almost three terms, seems to disagree with this stand.
“I have not yet finished my vision, and if the congress decides so I will be at their disposal,” he said last year announcing his run for a fourth term.

Blatter’s first real threat
There have been speculations of other candidates for the top post in international football, but according to German journalist Jens Weinreich, who has been following the work of Blatter closely for the last 12 years, this is the first real threat to Blatter’s presidency. “This could be the end of an era with Sepp Blatter,” he writes on his blog www.jensweinreich.de.

Weinreich believes that Jack Warner will be key in the turnout of the elections. Warner has a great influence on the 40 votes from CONCACAF members and according to Weinreich this influence will manifest in votes cast for the most prosperous contender. “And I do think he (Jack Warner, red.) will go for the Asians, simply because they have the money to pay. Blatter has no money,” Weinreich says to Play the Game. 

Asian votes for the presidential election count 46 of 208 and also play a vital role in deciding whether Blatter can continue his reign or if FIFA will be headed by a new president for the first time since 1998.

Blatter himself is ready to defend his post. "I am satisfied that now it is obvious that there will be candidates for the FIFA presidency in 2011 from Asia. I have not changed my position (to run for another term, red.)," Blatter said according to The Guardian.

Evans Mdebuka’s case has been postponed until Thursday 18 February so that he may undergo psychiatric observation.

In late January, journalists from South Africa’s only private free-to-air terrestrial TV station, e.tv, were subpoenaed by the Minster of Police for refusing to release the identities of two men they had interviewed for their news broadcast on January 16. The men claimed that they intended to commit crimes against foreigners during the tournament.

Subsequently, one of the suspected self-confessed criminals was arrested, and appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court last week on charges of intimidation and incitement to violence.

Journalists criminalised
A spokesperson for the ruling party of South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) accused e.tv news editor Ben Said and reporter Mpho Lakaje of being on par with criminals themselves for refusing to disclose the men’s identities, for not providing information about the firearms shown on the programme, and for not providing the police with unedited footage of the interview.

The incident has raised major internal debates over the constitutional rights to a free press in South Africa. It has also raised questions regarding Section 205 of the Criminal Procedure Act, which allows the state to force journalists to reveal their sources, and which was used predominantly in the apartheid era.

The case against the journalists was postponed indefinitely, pending mediation between e.tv’s legal counsel, the Ministry of Justice, and the police. The mediation is headed by the South African National Editors' Forum, who in 1999 devised a memorandum of understanding with the authorities stating that news editors should be consulted prior to a journalist being subpoenaed

Infringement on media freedom
In a local press agency statement, the vice chairman of the SA Press Council, Bewyn Petersen, outlined the precedent that will be set if the police are able to infringe on media freedom in this case:

"If the police are successful, it may prevent journalists from having access to similar situations in the future and may even endanger their lives. Should this happen, we will lose one of our most fundamental rights - the right to know - and it is our right to decide for ourselves."

e.tv journalists and representatives routinely decline comment for the duration of criminal court proceedings and the mediation.

Play the Game is currently going through a redesign of the website and we are hoping to make the transition as smooth as possible. However some readers may encounter small errors and bugs as all elements fall into place.

Play the Game regrets any problems you might meet but please know that we are doing our best to improve your experience when visiting www.playthegame.org.

Play the Game is looking forward to greeting you on our new website. 

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