A beautiful game - or a new opiate for the masses?

I am convinced that intrinsically there is something innately wrong with the human mind. Put a lump of leather into some unsuspecting human’s hand, fill it with air and then tell them to kick it around a field – and you start an obsession.

The trouble with obsessions is they become infectious, affecting entire nations, who, in turn, tend to ignore logic. Take the current World Cup, where South Africa has spent approximately £4bn in order to promote and run the event – in the hope it will be able to secure only £3bn in income.

Or what about our own London Olympics, now destined to cost the UK an estimated £10bn - and the anticipated income? £7.2bn.

Now call me a cynic if you will. Accuse me of being a killjoy if you must, but when the Tories in the UK are bleating on about a £156bn deficit that requires us to all work together and draw in our belts, one wonders who is being required to make the sacrifices.

After all, once the Olympic Games are over, 750,000 extra people are likely to be on the dole, so they won’t be able to afford to use the facilities. But we shouldn’t worry. After all, the fact there remains a chronic housing shortage in London under dear Boris is a mere technicality – we can be confident the 3000 rough sleepers in the city will feel so much better for having so many sports facilities.

Let’s face it, the reality is that most working class folk won’t be able to afford a ticket anyway – the cheapest tickets will be £15 and will go up to £50. With the axe falling across all services and inevitable tax increases,I wonder how many redundant civil servants will be sat in the stadia? They’ll have the time, but maybe the cashflow will be a little tighter in two years time.

Sadly, this kind of lunacy has now dribbled through to South Africa. Tonight thousands of fans will be sat drinking in the clubs throughout the country, handing over wads of rand notes across bars. Meanwhile, approximately 57% of individuals in South Africa live below the poverty income line. Limpopo and the Eastern Cape had the highest proportion of poor with 77% and 72% of their populations living below the poverty income line, respectively. Approximately 5.9 million people in South Africa live with HIV and this year alone it is anticipated that a further 70,000 babies will be born body positive and with insufficient funds available to establish a prevention and treatment programme, this is not destined to improve in the near future.

As long as the fans can close their eyes to the inequality, the poverty and the disadvantage, it should be a magnificent tournament.