World Cup begins

David Beckham's torn Achilles tendon, Michael Ballack's injured ankle and Michael Essien's and Rio Ferdinand's busted knees all will not be fixed until after the 2010 World Cup, but that's not the injury that South African administrators want to see healed when the final whistle blows.

It sounds like a quaint notion, of course, but remember that South Africa is freshly fractured from racial division and, even 16 years into democracy, has yet to find a formula to heal the deep cuts caused by apartheid. Recent events, such as the ruling African National Congress' youth leader Julius Malema's singing the struggle song "Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer" at rallies and the murder of right-wing, white supremacist leader Eugene Terre'blanche, raise fears of race wars. The incidents also demonstrated the re-birth of racial intolerance in a country that was crippled by such hatred for decades.

There was a national sigh of relief when the World Cup presented an opportunity to smooth over some of these tensions - even before the tournament kicked off. FIFA, the omnipresent organisation that now dictates everything South African businesses and sports organisations do, needed to have Pretoria's Loftus Stadium handed over to them on May 25. That meant the stadium could not be used by its rugby team, the Bulls, for their Super 14 semi-final or final.

In fact, the only venue available to the Bulls was the Orlando Stadium, which is an upgraded World Cup training ground and historic football venue. The Orlando Stadium is also in the middle of the famous black township Soweto, a thought that must have had the Bulls fans, who are predominantly white Afrikaans, feeling jittery. It had the marketing people, however, in heaven. They saw it as an opportunity to show that they were taking rugby, a game that has historically belonged to white people, to black people in their own township.

More than 30,000 Bulls' supporters stormed Soweto for two Saturdays in succession, buying beer from black locals, parking in their driveways for a nominal fee and mixing with them as though they were long-lost brothers. To the uncritical eye, those were two afternoons of racial unity and a celebration of how far South Africa had come.

To the more cynical one, there was something patronising about the way the Bulls' fans walked through washing lines outside the shacks that some black people call home and the way they posed for pictures as though in an exhibition park. One such sceptic, Telford Vice, wrote in a Cape Times newspaper column that he felt the whole spectacle was disingenuous, especially since some of the white supporters felt they were teaching black people about rugby, a sport they had been playing for years and which had growing racial representation in its professional teams.

Vice received a letter from a reader pointedly stating that racial representation is constantly skewed, as Matthew Booth is the only white player in the South African soccer squad. The letter-writer is not wrong: one player in a 23-man squad doesn't accurately represent the 9% white minority population. The point he makes, while tinged with racism, is highly relevant. Rugby is still considered the sport of the white man in this country and soccer that of the black man.

Far from feeling victimised, Booth is immensely popular among South African fans, both black and white. He appears to be the perfect symbol of the new South Africa, having married a former Miss South Africa princess who is black. He is also one of the best defenders in the country, towering at 6' 6'', and whenever he gets near the ball the crowd can be heard chanting his name. (It is often mistaken for them boo-ing, but that's just the phonetics of a name like Booth.)

The number of white players in the national soccer set-up has dwindled since South Africa won the Cup of Nations in 1996, still the squad's highest achievement. Then, the team was captained by Neil Tovey, a white man, and had players such as Mark Fish, Eric Tinkler and Roger de Sa in the side - all of whom are white. Now, apart from Booth and occasional reserve keeper Rowan Fernandez, white players are simply not coming through the system.

In fact, many Premier Soccer League clubs do not have a single white player in their squads, a problem that stems from the school sports system. Football is not played at many predominantly white high schools, where many of the county's rugby and cricket players are produced. In the apartheid era, those schools saw football as a threat to rugby, and that was part of what defined the two sports along racial lines. Although the schools have racially integrated, the sport's status hasn't changed. Young people who want to become professional players have to join a club, and many of the clubs are in black areas of the country, such as Soweto or the Cape Flats in Cape Town.

Despite the lack of white representation in the national team, South African citizens are feeling the World Cup vibe. Many white supporters have been spotted at the warm-up games around the country, many have bought tickets to the tournament, and many more sport South African flags on their cars and wear their Bafana Bafana jerseys on "Football Fridays," an initiative that encourages South Africans to wear the national kit.

These are the fans whom the organisers are hoping will be the catalyst for bringing the country together. South African officials have gone so far as to suggest that the World Cup is the magic glue that will make the nation one. For example, a local television advert shows groups of people of different races, such as a team of white shop owners and a squadron of black housecleaners, playing soccer against each other with the slogan "Beyond 2010, stands a nation united." Although a noble idea, that is optimistic.

On the day of the final of the rugby World Cup in 1995, then-President Nelson Mandela donned a Springbok jersey. The antelope emblem symbolised everything he had fought against - white domination, exclusivity and power - but he wore it because the team, which represented the country that he led, were in the final. The Springboks went on to win the tournament, and Mandela's gesture of reconciliation won over many white hearts.

The next day, life went back to normal. The black majority were battling against inequality, the lucky few who formed the black elite continued to grow, the white poor were only getting poorer, and the white affluent had a nice story to tell about how the country came together. Can the World Cup really help to change any of this?

Unfortunately, some wounds take longer to heal than Beckham's Achilles or Ferdinand's knee.