The Congress of the South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in the Western Cape called on city managers yesterday to dismantle Cape Town’s Greenpoint stadium and turn it into low-cost housing, saying that engineers and architects believed it was possible.
The stadium, built for the Soccer World Cup, has been struggling to sustain itself and to host events, largely due to high hiring costs. It has cost the city R44,6m in maintenance each year. The total operating budget was R56,7m in the past financial year, with only R12m expected to be generated by hiring it out.
Concerns have also been growing that a number of other World Cup stadiums around the country such as Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit and Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium could become white elephants, especially given that they are all funded by ratepayers.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=175439
You’ve got to laugh.
Boadicea's Chariot 
It really is too sick for words! I find it absolutely disgusting that poverty stricken countries such as SA, the Ukraine and now GB, who are quite incapable of providing their citizenry with decent housing, medicine, education and hospitals are willing to squander the tax payers’ money on such obscene frivolities as sports stadia for momentary usage, gratification of idiot fans and the self aggrandisement of big wigs. Not to forget the lining of the pockets of all and sundry within the oligarchy.
I am reminded of the ancient Greek quote.
‘Those that the Gods wish to destroy they first drive mad’
It appears that the hubris of the modern oligarchs is well on its way to achieving this status, dragging the populace behind them willy nilly with the empty rhetoric of ‘national pride’.
(Anyone that can look round SA, Ukraine and the GB currently and find adequate sources of national pride should have their heads examined in my opinion!)
I am equally aware how the Gods viewed hubris, they generally destroyed those possessing it rather unpleasantly.
The original prize at their Olympics was a financially valueless laurel leaf crown, says it all really doesn’t it?
I wonder whether the modern crass commercialism has now reached such an obscene point that retribution is at hand?
Should any catastrophic happening occur this year in London I think that the retribution will have been justly deserved.
This 4 year rotation of the venue is only a cheap excuse to impoverish countries in turn, jolly around the world at others expense and line the pockets of the inside track. It reminds me of the Medieval kings who went on progresses to sap the substance of their baronage in an effort to suppress insurrection. It should be returned to Greece, with all competing countries paying an annual maintenance fee for the site and scrap these self aggrandising opening extravagances, silly costumes and all the hangers on.
CO, your comments about Greek hubris rather reminds me of a particularly gruesome story concerning something called the ‘Brazen Bull’. I will spare you the gory details, but you can read of it here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazen_bull
I have some sympathy with your idea about the Olympics having a permanent home in Greece. However, I am not entirely against frivolous projects. As I was walking through Regent’s Park the other day I wondered, given the cost of maintaining the English Garden in particular, whether the space could not be better utilised for low cost housing.
SSHH!
Some bright spark will dump an asylum facility on it!
Morning sipu
Ours is well used.
Fortunately it’s the only stadium fit for purpose here (the old Boet fell into disrepair about 5 years ago.)
In the last 12 months we’ve seen 2 tests, the international sevens, all E.P. rugby’s matches, a couple of PSL games, 2 expos (outdoor & wine) and of course rock concerts (Neil diamond & Josh Grogan.)
I’d estimate about 250,000 spectators (excluding expo visitors.)
I believe that the stadium’s running costs are ± R20 million. I’m sure that I’ve read that the municipality is only recovering about half of that at the moment, which means that each spectator is being subsidised by perhaps R40.00 per event by the municipality, that’s a small price to pay!
We’ve been promised Super Rugby next year, that’ll help 🙂
Bread and circuses have always been the opium of the people, if you’ll excuse the mixed analogy. And telling people what’s good for them is a particularly unrewarding pastime – when in fact most people enjoy extravagant events of many kinds, including river pageants, rock concerts and sports extravaganzas.
It seems a bit churlish of people with plenty of brass and a super-comfortable life-style to pooh-pooh the efforts of governments to entertain their citizenry.
I don’t actually think it is within the hegemony of a government to entertain their citizens!!!
If people want entertainment, let those who want it pay for it.
CO, most governments I can think of clearly disagree with you. They have Culture, Sports and Heritage Ministries to do the work.
Morning Soutie and Janus, I do not disagree that stadiums ought to be built. I just question the motives for building them in the wrong places and to the wrong specification and in communities that cannot afford them. Cape Town could afford it but it is still a waste, given its location, which as I said earlier should have been Athlone where the soccer playing community lives. Other less prosperous provinces could not afford their stadiums.
Soutie, in the case of Port Elizabeth, we all know that the Eastern Cape receives a disproportionate share of the national budget because it is the ANC heartland and yet the province underperforms at almost every level. I cannot help that there is a degree of conspiracy to divert major sporting events from Cape Town to PE for political reasons. Cape Town has a much bigger market and a better claim to the English cricket and rugby matches, but they have been particularly scarce in recent years. As for the World Cup, the CT stadium was built in the wrong place against all sort of legitimate objections, including the fact that it would always be a white elephant. Only 4 games were played there.
As for EP getting Super Rugby, do not forget that it will be at the expense of another province.
Have you driven past the Polokwane Stadium. It is miles from anywhere. Limpopo is a poor province. Build a stadium by all means, but one that is appropriate to the community.
Sipu I agree that that a lot of them are white elephants, I merely wanted to show that you couldn’t tar then all with the same brush. the Cape town stadium will never work as long as Western Province rugby refuse to relocate.
Prior to last years All Black test our previous one was 2006 v France, that was a 5 year wait!
We used to always be on the test match rosta for cricket tests but that also fell away, we’ve got a test vs NZ this Dec for perhaps also the first time in 5 years!
As for perhaps The Lions dropping out of Super rugby I couldn’t care less, have you seen their performance and attendances this past 2 seasons?
If market size was the sole defining factor in selecting venues then surely Jhb should get them all, the bigger unions have had more than their fair share of the cake for far too long, time to spread it around a little, we filled our stadium both times (47,000 people, not much less than Newlands) we’re proud of that.
By the way Cape Town hosted 9 FIFA games.
And I disagree that CT has a better claim to host matches, perhaps another day 😉
Was it really 9 games? Just goes to show you can’t believe everything you are told. I apologise. 😦
I do appreciate that your stadium is a hit. Ours would be too had it been built in the appropriate area. But it was corruption and hubris that lead to its being built in Greenpoint. I am also pretty certain that it was also the ANC saying #HMD to the predominantly DA-voting residents of the area.
The rest of your points have a great deal of validity, even the last one. Maybe. 🙂
I’m with Christina here – it should not be the Government’s responsibility to entertain its citizens.
However, having said that, I’d be pretty upset if Regent’s Park was built over with council housing, museums were closed or libraries were dismantled.
The fact that I think subsidising Soutie to the tune of R40.00 per visit to his local stadium to watch a ball being kicked / thrown from one end of a field to another is a total waste of tax-payers’ money, I am extremely grateful that I can walk into the National Archives in Kew and read original documents dating from the 12th C – absolutely free of charge. I’m even allowed to photograph the said documents, also free of charge. I wonder how much my visits are subsidised… I’m sure that some might find paying for my ‘entertainment’ a total waste of taxpayer’s money!
One way or another Governments do provide ‘entertainment’ for its citizens and I don’t think anyone should judge whether one man’s entertainment has a greater value than anyone else’s.
I do, however, take your point, Sipu – that these facilities should be built in places which can attract the greatest number of people and not in places that are determined by some outside body who have no concern for local conditions or the needs of those people who will use those facilities.
Regarding converting Regents Park into a refugee camp, this may pique your interest, CO and Boadicea.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2144640/Park-Lane-Romanian-beggars-set-camp-yards-evicted.html
Boa, I have to confess, I have thoroughly taken advantage of the free access to museums and galleries while I have been in London and I think it is a wonderful feature of this country. I am sure that it does pay dividends in the number of tourists that come here as a result. However, I do think it is very sad that while it is free to use the Archives at Kew, the Gardens now cost £14.50. Not so long ago, it was about 50p. This article explains why, but I am not sure that the business model is particularly sound.
http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/kew-gardens-blooming-big-crisis-6717746.html
I do not think parks, museums, archives and libraries can be classed as entertainment. They are educational necessities and from the intellectual state of the population must be hideously underused!
Money that should be funding the above is wasted on subsidising the arts, music, sport, foreign aid, handouts to Eurotrash as above, none of which are necessities.
I’ll make an exception to swimming pools. Drowned bodies floating about are a health hazard!
Actually I think it is rather a good idea to have Kew expensive, it keeps the trash out, have you seen how people’s children behave when let loose? The boy and I used to walk daily in the parks in Brum, but the children were so badly behaved and would cannon into him that we retreated to the Botanic Gardens and took annual subscriptions. Quite wonderful, at £7.00 entry fee not a brat or peasant in sight. Total refuge of the middle classes. I have seen feral paki brats run straight across flower beds! (A hanging offence in my book!!!)
Mrs Osborne,
In my book you are truly a class act. 🙂
Hear, hear.
Ha ha ha ha, I’m a ratepayer.
Are you suggesting that the national archives in Kew cost nothing to maintain?
Nobody goes anywhere for free! somebody somewhere is paying.
Not only am I ratepayer but I’ve been on our ward council committee for the past 16 years, I don’t expect a subsidy, I’d happily pay R40.00 more but you miss the point, our stadium costs buttons to maintain compared to others.
R10 million is a small price to pay.
I think you have missed my point Soutie… I am well aware that the Archives in Kew cost a fortune to maintain – I reckon a great deal more than your stadium!
My point was that while I, along with a number of others, may think subsidising sports venues is a waste of taxpayer’s money – I am quite sure that others consider subsidising my visits to the Archives to be a waste of money – and that people should not be too quick to judge what activities are worthy of tax-payers’ money. One way or another, we all, as ratepayers and / or taxpayers subsidise others’ interests and are subsidised ourselves.
Howzit Boadicea, quite right, my apologies, I was agreeing to disagree 😕
The only real danger is that a government should disagree with CO! 🙂