Mega Sports Events, Coloniality of Power and the FIFA  2010 World Cup in South Africa: An Analysis of Changes in Representation Over Time

Mega sports events, particularly football events, play an important role in changing public perceptions about a nation. In Africa, football events have been instrumentalized not only for entertainment, but also for shaping national consciousness, identity formation and countering old-age colonial stereotypes about Africa. In many ways FIFA 2010 World cup, which was the first of its kind on African soil was more than a game of football, as it was an occasion to debunk negative colonial images about  South Africa and Africa in general. On the one hand, the staging of FIFA 2010 world Cup was informed by the Western-oriented World Football Association (FIFA) logic in terms of organization and media marketing – the event invoked discourses of modernity suggestive of the fact that Africa as a backward continent which needed to catch up with Europe in terms of development. On the other hand, the event created opportunities to transform (South) Africa’s image in the global arena through positive national symbols and imagery. Using the concept of coloniality of power, this chapter examines the representation of the FIFA 2010 World Cup in three  South African and nine of the world’s most influential newspapers between  (2013–2023). The newspapers selected for the study are BILD, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany), Daily Sun, The Sunday Times and The Star (South Africa), New York Times and New York Post (USA) and The Times of India (India). Data were obtained through content analysis and discourse analysis of purposively sampled newspaper articles from the selected newspapers. The chapter argues that newspaper representation of the 2010 FIFA World Cup demonstrates an uneven distribution of power whereby South Africa, and by extension Africa is constructed through a discourse of coloniality and modernity characterized a backward continent   which needs catch up with the rest of the world.