Sixteen years after the South Africa World Cup: Empty stadiums and youth with no way out

South African football has never been as contradictory as it is today.

In July 2010, the stands of the Durban Stadium were filled with vuvuzelas. Sixteen years later, there are more security guards than spectators in the stadium. Their daily job is to check the few hundred tickets and drive away seagulls flying into the field.

In 2010, South Africa spent $4.3 billion to host the FIFA World Cup, becoming the first African country to host the event. But what the FIFA World Cup left behind for South Africa was not the anticipated sustained prosperity, but a wound that has yet to heal. People can't help but wonder, what exactly happened to South African football in these sixteen years?

The Paradox of Stadiums and Communities

The Durban Stadium was one of the most magnificent buildings of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, with its massive arch structure resembling a torch overlooking the Indian Ocean. Sixteen years have passed, the turf is still neatly trimmed, and security guards are still on duty, but the stands are often sparsely populated with only a few hundred people. This stadium, which once captured the world's attention, is now deserted and struggling financially.

In fact, such an outcome was foreshadowed. ESPN and FOX Sports published reports simultaneously after the FIFA World Cup, warning that these stadiums, which cost over $1 billion, might become expensive and useless white elephants. Originally, South Africa envisioned that local rugby and football teams would take over the stadiums after the FIFA World Cup, but the Durban city never communicated with the local Sharks rugby team before building the Moses Mabhida Stadium. This magnificent building, costing $400 million and boasting 70,000 seats, did not even have enough suites to accommodate the Sharks' existing season ticket holders. Cape Town's Green Point Stadium (later renamed Cape Town Stadium) faced the exact same predicament. After the FIFA World Cup, the company originally slated to take over operations for 30 years quickly withdrew, citing that "operating and maintenance costs far exceeded expectations, and shareholders were unwilling to sign a contract predicting huge losses."

Rugby teams couldn't use it, and football teams couldn't afford it. In 2014, Ajax Cape Town, the only local team that had played at Green Point Stadium, announced its relocation, citing excessive rental costs and poor turf conditions. The maintenance costs for these stadiums range between 6 million and 10 million, while actual revenue falls far short of this amount. These two stadiums, built at a cost of 1 billion, were thus absurdly left vacant.

Cape Town Green Point Stadium (now Cape Town Stadium)

Visitors can even bungee jump from the roof of the Moses Mabhida Stadium

The Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth presents a different picture. This $282 million "Lotus" shaped venue, located in Mandela's hometown, was tasked with rectifying the city's "long-standing lack of a professional football stadium." At its inception, locals rejoiced, finally having a world-class stadium. However, sixteen years later, Port Elizabeth still does not have a team in the South African Premier League. After the FIFA World Cup, the stadium could only maintain vitality through diversified operations, such as hosting rugby events (like the 2022 Rugby World Cup Sevens) and earning ticket revenue by hosting neutral matches for the South African Premier League, similar to Wembley Stadium.

Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium

A study conducted by the University of Johannesburg in South Africa in 2020, which involved in-depth investigations of venues in Cape Town, Durban, and Port Elizabeth, found that these FIFA World Cup venues "almost completely lack strategic planning for post-event sustainable utilization." In 2021, another survey of 1,120 residents further confirmed this situation: "The current operating and maintenance costs are extremely high, posing significant sustainability challenges."

However, while respondents generally acknowledged the "enormous" maintenance costs of the venues, they strongly resisted demolition plans. In their view, these venues are symbols of the FIFA World Cup. As early as before the opening of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, studies captured the high hopes residents had for stadium construction. According to the survey, local residents generally held a very positive attitude towards the FIFA World Cup and stadium construction, especially having high expectations for "local economic development" and "increased employment opportunities." At that time, workers involved in the construction of the Durban stadium told reporters that the FIFA World Cup provided them with job opportunities, "making them feel directly connected to the FIFA World Cup."

Since the stadiums cannot be demolished to save money, the only option is to generate revenue. Faced with continuous financial pressure, the Durban city government launched a plan in February 2026, intending to establish a three-year partnership with local professional football clubs such as AmaZulu and South African giants Kaizer Chiefs, as well as the South African Football Association (SAFA), the Confederation of African Football (CAF), and FIFA, to generate income through hosting events and maintain the sustainable operation of the stadium. Not only that, in March 2026, the South African national team just played an international friendly against Panama here.

These "self-rescue" efforts have been effective. A financial report from February 2026 showed that a cup semifinal previously held at the Durban stadium created 145 new jobs in Durban and contributed 80.6 million rand (approximately $4.915 million) to the local GDP.

In fact, even before this self-rescue, South Africa had already paid a huge price to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup. When the bid was successfully won in 2004, South Africa announced a budget of only 2.3 billion rand. But by the opening in 2010, the final investment had ballooned to over 33 billion rand (approximately $4.3 billion), equivalent to 1.72% of South Africa's GDP at the time. Among these, the cost of building and renovating 10 stadiums exceeded $1.3 billion, with Cape Town's Green Point Stadium alone costing $366 million; security expenditure exceeded $1 billion, with approximately 41,000 new police officers; in terms of transportation, over 11.2 billion rand was invested, upgrading 7 airports, building 1 new airport, purchasing over 100 buses, and constructing Africa's first intercity high-speed rail line – the Gautrain.

Beyond the event, South Africa also made some promises for football development. Shortly after the 2010 FIFA World Cup concluded, FIFA announced the establishment of a $100 million "FIFA World Cup Legacy Trust Fund," with $20 million allocated to the SAFA for league preparations and headquarters construction, and the remaining $80 million for football development, education, health, and humanitarian projects. The SAFA also announced that it would use ticket revenue to establish a football development fund, and the government also planned to establish inter-school football leagues in public schools. However, the implementation of these measures was slow. The Legacy Trust Fund did not arrive until April 2012. The first batch of projects was approved in 2013, totaling 56 million rand, mainly for U13 and U15 boys' and girls' leagues, women's football regional leagues, grassroots coach training, and referee training. Among the 52 artificial turf pitches, the first 27 were completed by June 2011, and the remaining 25 progressed slowly due to funding issues. The promise of inter-school leagues was not followed up thereafter.

A youth training pathway transformed a national team

Although most of the stadiums from 2010 were idle, the impact of that FIFA World Cup on South Africa's football population was not zero. Large-scale events often stimulate young people's enthusiasm for football. This enthusiasm led to the creation of DDC a few years later. Its birth opened a new chapter for South African youth training.

The DDC (DStv Diski Challenge) is the reserve league under the South African Premier League and the first youth league of its kind in African football. Founded in 2014, it is essentially a reserve league for clubs in the South African Premier League, providing a transitional platform for young players from youth training to the first team. According to official South African Premier League data, the DDC has supplied over 310 players to first teams. Foster, Mbokazi, Mofokeng, and other key FIFA World Cup players have all played in it. By 2025, 260 DDC graduates have represented various South African national teams. The DDC played an indispensable role in the 2026 FIFA World Cup group stage qualification and South Africa's U20's first African Cup victory.

Foster was promoted from the DDC to the Orlando Pirates first team at 17, and two years later joined Monaco for 1.2 million Euros, but had limited playing opportunities. He then moved between Belgian and Portuguese second-tier leagues. In the 2022-23 season, he played 21 times for Westerlo in the Belgian Pro League, scoring 8 goals, and transferred to Burnley in the winter window for 11 million Euros, setting a transfer fee record for South African players, and becoming the only DDC graduate to establish himself in the Premier League. To date, he has played 50 Premier League games for Burnley, contributing 8 goals and 5 assists, and scored a last-gasp winner against Wolves in October 2025.

Lyle Foster

Mandla Ndlovu, former head of the DDC program, stated that nurturing football talent requires a long-term vision, investment, and a stable platform, which often takes ten years. AmaZulu coach Arthur Zwane said that about 80% of the current national team players have played in the DDC, indicating that the system is working.

However, hidden worries are equally apparent. DDC graduates primarily circulate within the South African Premier League. If the DDC is merely a "domestic circulation" assembly line, the ceiling for South African football remains clearly visible. According to statistics, over the past decade, the DDC has supplied 310 young players and 260 national team players at various levels to the South African Premier League, but the vast majority of them still remain in the South African Premier League, with only a handful choosing to play abroad.

From top league to overlooked: The plight of South African players playing abroad

The DDC proved that South African football can cultivate its own talent. But what happens after they are cultivated? A harsh reality is that these young people can barely find a path to the top European leagues.

If we compare the 2010 South Africa squad with the 2026 lineup, a stark reality becomes apparent: 20 years ago, Benni McCarthy won the Champions League with Porto, Lucas Radebe was captain of Leeds United, and Quinton Fortune wore the Manchester United jersey. However, with Foster's Burnley being relegated to the Championship, there are now no players from Europe's top five leagues in the team that achieved South Africa's best FIFA World Cup performance.

In the late 1990s, South African football, through the bridge of Ajax Cape Town, sent a generation of famous players such as Radebe and McCarthy to Europe. But after the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the number of South African players playing in Europe was only a few scattered individuals. In 2012, Percy Tau became one of the few South Africans to establish themselves in Belgium, playing for both Club Brugge and Anderlecht. During the same period, Kamohelo Mokotjo moved between the Netherlands and Belgium, and Daine Klate also played in the German second division.

Behind these scattered cases of playing in Europe is a collapsing talent export channel. And the former pillar of this channel was Ajax Cape Town. An ESPN report during the 2026 FIFA World Cup revealed a key turning point: since South Africa's return to international sports in 1992, Ajax has been a springboard for South African players to play abroad. But in 2020, Ajax withdrew from its equity partnership with Cape Town Spurs and sold its 51% stake in Ajax Cape Town. Ajax officially cited "lack of confidence in the quality of South African player development" as the reason, but a deeper reason was long-standing grievances between local clubs and the Dutch side, with frequent management frictions and philosophical conflicts. With Ajax's withdrawal, South Africa lost a stable export channel similar to Ghana's "Right to Dream" academy – the latter has produced top league stars such as Kudus, Nuamah, and Sulemana.

Ajax left. Meanwhile, in West Africa, another academy founded by Europeans is operating at high speed.

Ghana's "Right to Dream" academy, founded in 1999 by Manchester United scout Tom Vernon, aims to build a pathway from Africa to Europe. The academy covers over 180 communities and assesses over 100,000 Ghanaian children annually. In 2015, Vernon acquired Danish Superliga club FC Nordsjælland, allowing young Ghanaian players to play in European professional leagues. Stars like Kudus, Nuamah, and Adingra all came through this pathway. Foster, on the other hand, was promoted to the Orlando Pirates first team at 17 and only landed in the Premier League at 23.

Looking back at South Africa. The DDC can also cultivate talent, with Foster and Mofokeng both emerging from it. However, after Ajax's divestment, this channel lacked a window for exporting to Europe. Furthermore, international clubs have almost no permanent youth training programs in South Africa. Liverpool once opened a football academy in South Africa but closed it two years later due to mismanagement; clubs like Barcelona, Juventus, and Paris Saint-Germain also only have seasonal training camps in South Africa, and these short-term programs have limited effect and cannot form a continuous talent supply channel. The backwardness of the scouting network also leads to South African players having a natural lack of early contact and long-term attention from European clubs compared to other African regions.

The mindset of South African players themselves also affects their desire to play abroad. Former South African international Katlego Mphela bluntly stated: South African players are unwilling to go to Europe because "life in South Africa is too comfortable; there are nightclubs, braai spots, shopping malls, and good communities here." While West African players "go to Europe for survival." According to 2024 IMF data, South Africa's GDP per capita exceeds $6,000, which is four to five times that of West African countries such as Ghana and Ivory Coast, and South Africa's shopping malls, convenient highways, and mature urban consumption spaces are scarce in many West African countries. Ghanaian coach Maxwell Konadu's observation is even more poignant: "South African players have everything from a young age; they have good pitches, good equipment, and good facilities, so their hunger to go to Europe is not as strong. Ghanaian players grow up struggling, and that survival instinct makes them more resilient and adaptable overseas."

The European pathway has closed, but South African players have to find other ways out. Fortunately, the South African Premier League provides them with a comfortable fallback. With Africa's most professional operating model, the South African Premier League attracts a large number of local players to stay. Powerhouses like Orlando Pirates and Mamelodi Sundowns perform well in the African Champions League, and the salary levels of domestic players are among the highest in Africa. When "earning a decent salary by staying in the South African Premier League" becomes a realistic option, the motivation to travel far to Europe and sit on the bench is naturally diluted. In the 26-man squad for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, 19 players are from clubs in the South African Premier League.

The younger generation has not given up the desire to "go abroad," but their destination is no longer Europe, but rather second-tier regional leagues such as the Middle East and Major League Soccer. In 2023, Mohau Nkota transferred to Al-Ettifaq in Saudi Arabia; in 2024, Mbekezeli Mbokazi went to Major League Soccer in the United States. Currently, all 10 overseas players included in the preliminary squad for this year's South African national team are under the age of 27.

In an interview in April 2026, Nkota directly stated: "I want to transfer when I'm young to experience other countries' leagues."

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