Hosts, South Africa, have done a remarkable job hosting one of the most fun-filled World Cups in history. For a World Cup that was bugged with fear and apprehension by an over-critical Western media, the event must have served Africa in much more ways than other continents that have hosted it. South Africa have opened the gates to the rest of the continent. Never will the world say again that an African country cannot successfully host the event. Never again will the world say that the continent does not have the political will, the infrastructure, the human expertise and the resources to host the World Cup. True there may be only a few other countries in the continent capable of hosting the event, there surely are a few.

Into the future though the organisers of the World Cup must take the legacy of every World Cup farther than the rhetorics and the esoteric. Legacies must impact on the lives of the people beyond the championship. South Africa’s example becomes a useful case study. The 1-Goal Education for All campaign is one such project. It ran on its own steam with tremendous support from various media and corporate organisations but without any funding by FIFA or even the South African government. It has left a message of hope for the illiterate children of the world as its object was to draw attention to the plight of children that ought to be in school but are not in the world.  What happens after the World Cup would now determine how serious the world takes the message and not that the world’s political leaders did not get it.

On a final note, whilst congratulating South Africa for being great Ambassadors of the African continent I urge the continents football leadership to revisit the idea of a regional World Cup in the future for Africa. It will serve the multiple purpose of regional integration, cooperation amongst different countries, economic growth, infrastructural development in multitude of countries, an opportunity to take the World Cup to smaller countries, reduction in cost to countries hosting the event, and the life-time opportunity for countries that otherwise would never, perhaps, even dream that they could one day host the most important single sporting event in the world. It provides them the opportunity to share in the glory of hosts and the attendant political, economic and social benefits.