to boycott the world cup...

[foureleven]

Ok I HATE football anyway but having watched that thing with the 'WAGS' where they are in J'burg helping poor people and stuff I did some investigating in to the cost of the stadium and hoped to find that they actually did do something to improve the lives of those living in the area etc etc..

Having concluded my investigations.. It appears that they did nothing of the sort an obscene amounts of money have been spent on the ugly montrosity. Children have had their 'homes' (shacks) pulled down to make the area look more attractive to tourists and are living in the open in moutains and sewers...

I just cant see how anyone can sit and watch a bunch of over paid knobs run around after a ball in this fancy stadium at the xpense of these poor little creatures.

Im not having it on in my house and is DP leaves me, so be it.

I take it then that you don't enjoy watching any hollywood movies or listen to any successful music artists if you deem what footballers do to be overpaid and pointless.
If you don't like it don't watch, but it is beyond me why people go out of their way to show how much they dislike football above and beyond any other sport as though it is some sort of moral badge of honour.
Oh an fwiw they are not overpaid, they are paid what the market dictates.
You also show your own ignorance by describing them all as knobs.

umm mayorquimby I dont watch films really and I only listen to electronic music producers and DJs who are exactly commercial so probably not the answer you wanted!

'not overpaid - paid what the market dictates'. How does the one rule out the other?

I assume the point of getting the world cup was to give some positivity and validation to a country which is usually viewed in a pretty depressing light - perhaps to try to be the spark that ignites something? I couldn't give a monkeys about the world cup but I wouldn't underestimate it's importance round the world. All these events seem to carry a certain level of nauseating hypocrisy - the Olympics is just as bad.

arent exactly commercial

"not overpaid - paid what the market dictates'. How does the one rule out the other?
"

because if you are being paid your market value then by definition you are not being over-paid.

"I dont watch films really and I only listen to electronic music producers and DJs who are exactly commercial so probably not the answer you wanted!"
no that's a perfect answer. In the same way that you can't understand how anyone can "sit and watch a bunch of over paid knobs run around after a ball in this fancy stadium at the xpense of these poor little creatures.
" I'd imagine millions of people can't understand how you can enjoy a bunch of over-paid twats mixing electronic beats into something that in no way resembles music and fuels drug culture at the expense of many young lives.
That would be an equally moronic and shallow view as yours regarding football but would be equally applicable going by your logic.
And your answer of " I don't watch movies really" means that you do watch some movies and so contribute to an equally exorbitant industry in terms of wages of the major players.

Hi OP, I think you have a point. The one advantage about holding the event there has been that a lot of unsavoury stuff about South Africa (some of it heartbreaking - don't know if you saw the recent Sunday Times feature on child rape there) that people previously didn't know about or care about (more likely) is now being made public and topical, which can only be good.

I agree with you about the overpaid knobs too.

Mayorquimby - the OP is clearly talking about morals not marketplaces and you are being pointlessly pedantic.

I hate football.
but.. a lot of people love it, so I hope they enjoy it

South Africa has huge , so what about the jobs building & running the stadiums has created?

I think it's good for the WAG's to see poverty and do something to help. I'd like to think no-one can be unchanged when faced with such poverty & sickness. Also the programme will highlight these charities to ordinary folk.

What's your source for children living in sewers & on mountains?

That should read a huge problem with unemployment!!

Apparently the jobs created were far fewer than expected. And offered to those not in the greatest need.

It was several sourced, Wiki, some local SA sites etcetc

"Mayorquimby - the OP is clearly talking about morals not marketplaces and you are being pointlessly pedantic. "

Then why bother with describing footballers as "overpaid knobs" if this has nothing to do with market place values and single out football?
I was merely pointing out that she is incorrect to describe them as over-paid and knobs, it only serves to highlight her ignorance regarding footballers and highlight the fact that her problem stems from a disdain from the sport rather than any real humanitarian issues otherwise she would be discussing boycotting the entertainment industry as a whole and sports as a whole.
And how is it pointlessly pedantic, she is the one who raised the issue with crass generalisations and the belittling of a sport rather than looking at the nuanced ways in which football has actually helped south africa and other developing countries as a whole around the world with huge amounts of charitable and humanitarian foundations based upon the sport.
Add to that the fact that football in particular had a huge affect on the post apartheid government founded in south africa evolving from the organised leagues on Robben Island (if anyone is interested they should read "more than jusdt a game" and it's abundantly clear that football has given a great deal to south african culture.

Another factor about the World Cup being held in SA is Women's Rights/Children's Rights. SA has the highest rate of rape/sexual assault of women and children in the world (including that of babies and toddlers). There is also a huge problem with forced prostitution and sex trafficking. There's always, sadly, an increase in sex trafficking and the moving of prostitutes to the designated area when any World Cup is on (statistics show fans go in their droves to prostitutes and sex shows, etc.) and many local and international groups working for the rights of women and children are up in arms about the quite horrifying increase in sex trafficking and forced prostitution in SA that's been occurring in time for the World Cup (forced prostitution is where local women will be either grabbed off the street OR sweet-talked by some bloke pretending to want to be a girl's boyfriend who will be tricked into a situation of assault. The woman/women is/are then usually 'seasoned' and then 'turned out' in much the same way as trafficked women are: beaten, threatened and gang-raped - which is often filmed - and forced to be working girls).

This horrific situation should be bad enough on its own before you even consider all the other unacceptable factors in South African society (the poverty, the violence (it's also the car-jacking capital of the world), the crime and the continuing racism, etc.). I do not understand why the sporting authorities have turned a blind eye to all of this and how they live with it. Human Rights agencies warned them of all this when SA was proposed as a potential venue. The 'creating jobs' excuse is misleading - the majority of people working towards building things have been doing so under virtual slave labour conditions and the benefit to the small number who have gained temporary work from the World Cup is swamped under the stinking mass of problems that have and will be caused by it or which have been made far, far worse.

Human Rights are more important than sport, money or entertainment and it is quite simply wrong for the World Cup, and all the underlying issues it creates or worsens, to be held in SA.

Coming from SA, It is a bit too easy to draw these simplistic conclusions. The fact is that the footballers certainly don't profit from the cup as much as the promoters the sponsors and FIFA itself.

The problem is that a lot of what is going on in SA is being swept under the carpet and being ignored and the proverbial is going to hit the fan when the media spotlight is turned on to the next big thing ...

Scorpette, thank you for your far more eloquent and informed opinion on the subject. Mine was very elementary in comparrion.

And I concede Mayorquimby that I shouldnt have called them 'knobs' Footballers are so frequently portrayed as strip club going, cheating mysogonist larger louts that its easy to forget they arent all like that.

Also, Maybe you are right that my vitriol stems from my dislike for the sport in general.

But for the reasons scorpette mentioned, I stand by my judgement.

Also, I agree the Olympics is the same.. so its not just football by any stretch... ive been complaining about the Olympics forever too... was just trying to be current.

Oh Riven, I love your to-the-point remarks

I'm firmly in the 'why use one word when you can use 200' camp and so its very refreshing!

YANBU

I love football. This is a brilliant time for me.

Some of them ARE knobs though....;-)

Actually I nearly started a thread after watching the WAGS. I was disappointed that the BBC dumbed down enough to just show WAGS crying lots and going through the motions, when a much more interesting, imho, programme could have been made about the people who do that all the time....

Sydney mopped up their streets to be more palatable before the Olympics, shipped "undesirables" out and jazzed up th routes to various stadia

As did Manchester for the Commonwealth Games

I do agree that SA has a whole host of problems, butevery country does as well.

I don't see the Wags handing out soup to the homeless in London/Newcastle/Liverpool/Birmingham whereever.

Wags are just women who men who can kick a ball around married/hitched up with at the end of the day.

The whole 'WAG' tag infuriates me as well. I can't imagine being defined by what my DP does for a living.