Confed Cup gets off to rocky start

“This is not a day for speeches; let us get on and enjoy the game.” This is how President Zuma opened the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup at the Elllis Park Stadium, in front of an expectant capacity crowd. Earlier last week, during his State of the Nation Address, Zuma had assured the world that “all system are in place to make the Confederations Cup a huge success”.

Good touch-points

• Opening Ceremony: The appetiser to the game was nothing short of spectacular. In uniquely African flair, 700 school children painted their bodies in the colours of the national flag and the 2010 logo to the tune of a pennywhistle.

  Fans: In true South African fashion, the fans electrified the atmosphere at Ellis Park, blowing their vuvuzelas most passionately, enacting the La Ola wave many a time around the stadium, and declaring Shosholoza their team's anthem. Especially when Bafana was on the attack did the fans rise to the occasion of flying the flag and supporting their team vociferously.

  Marshals: The game marshals, positioned on the field to guard the players from potential streakers, were friendly, observant and extremely well-positioned to prevent any incidents (even though they had to turn their backs to the game for the entire 90 minutes) - whereas at the 2005 Confed Cup, four streaks managed to get past the marshals (spread out at a distance of 10m each) and run up to the players, this time the distances were almost down to 1m each, thus clearly foiling even any thought at streaking.

Bad touch-points

• Park-and-ride overload: At the Wits University park-and-ride facility, we encountered delays of almost two hours to get in before the game, and another hour-and-a-half on the way out after the game. The volume of traffic was clearly overwhelming this facility and fans got agitated when they realised that many would be arriving late.

• Directions: The lack of signposting to where the different buses were leaving for their respective destinations was exacerbated by the lack of direction of our bus driver who decided to follow the bus ahead of him, only to end up at the Metrobus depot, and then relying on the shouting of the passengers to find his way to the stadium.
  
• Beer drought: At our block, Number 25 on the North Gate, the beer ran out fast before half time and caused thirsty fans to toy-toy in demand for more liquid nutrition.

Ugly touch-points

• Corporate suites: While the category 1 - 4 ranks were filled to 85% capacity, almost all the corporate boxes on the east and west side remained empty throughout the game. It appears that corporate South Africa did not make use of this facility which is rather disappointing, seeing that this is a unique opportunity to embrace the event and treat your customers and employees alike to a once-in-a-lifetime occasion.

• Cheerful volunteers, grumpy cops: Whereas every volunteer we encountered was going out of their way to assist us with a smile, out of the five police (wo)men we asked for directions to the Wits buses after the game, we did not receive a single smile but rather terse responses, ranging from “No idea” to “that way” (which turned out to be the wrong way) to “Eish, this thing is not working”. The massive police presence, although impressive in numbers, did not inspire confidence in their helpfulness towards fans and it became clear that they had been left out of the communication loop in terms of the park-and-ride traffic flow.

• Bus 'napping: In their frustration over lack of signposting to find the location for the buses headed to Wits more than 90 minutes after the game, a number of buses were ‘hijacked' by commuters who decided to fill up the vehicles next to them and then holding the driver to ransom demands “Wits or else!”

In conclusion, in order to deliver Zuma's Confed Cup Promise that “all system are in place to make the Confederations Cup a huge success”, a concerted effort needs to be made to turn the bad and ugly touch-points into great experiences for the ultimate clients of this event, the ordinary fans, and go the extra mile to ensure that this Cup will not just be remembered by VIPs and sponsors only.