South Africa's World Cup

This groundbreaking book provides a critically informed and holistic analysis of the impact and legacy of mega-sporting events through the lens of South Africa's 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup and its associated developmental paradigm. In doing so, it challenges mainstream thinking and mega-event praise singers by providing rigorous political-economic analysis and concrete evidence to show that this sporting spectacular was little more than a front for massive accumulation and extraction of wealth, alongside increased sporting and socio-economic inequality. Contributors to this volume examine the sports accumulation-complex, economic promises, construction companies, trade unions, strikes, international solidarity, the struggle to trade, sex work, climate change, as well as case studies on the building of individual soccer stadiums.