Promise unfulfilled or too much expected: South Africa’s historical relationship with the FIFA World Cup, 1992–2018

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper considers South Africa’s hitherto brief, yet significant, relationship with the FIFA World Cup as an attempt to assess the broader role of football in the country’s post-apartheid era. Despite South Africa’s near 30-year isolation from international football due to apartheid, the country made notable strides both on and off the field of play during the 1990s, eventually culminating in the hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. These developments are contextualized within the broader South African nation building project of the period, noting the men’s national team’s absence from the two most recent World Cups. In this regard, the 2018 World Cup in Russia serves as an opportunity to consider the state of South African football in the context of the country’s post-apartheid political trajectory.