South Africa hoping to squeeze this opportunity for all that it is worth

FOR millions of people the crucial aspect of the World Cup about to kick off is not which country emerges as champions on July 11 but whether the host nation can deliver a successful tournament, one which can make an entire continent proud to be African.

This World Cup is the biggest sporting thing to have happened to Africa, far more important to the future of the country and the region than the rugby version of 1995, the only event of anywhere near the same status to have been entrusted to an African country.

The Rugby World Cup was a triumph, thanks in part to the home nation's victory and the political capital made from it by Nelson Mandela.

Then, the 'Rainbow Nation' was starting out on a bold voyage and the optimism was pervasive. Now, that same nation has grown weary of promises; much of what was despised about the apartheid years remains, not least the ramshackle townships which Mandela and his successors swore to tear down and replace with homes deemed fit to live in.

Now there are many who see South Africa as the continent's last hope: if this World Cup can deliver, not just in the quality of football but in crowd control, security, transport infrastructure, value for money and – perhaps most of all – that elusive feel-good factor, then it will be the general perception that Africa, from Algeria to Angola, Morocco to Mozambique, can at last begin to dream – as Mandela had done for so long – of casting aside the troubles of the last century and more.

That might seem fanciful, but history insists that major sporting events like Olympic Games and World Cups can have significance far beyond the sphere of mere sport.

If things go awry – as they did for whatever reason at the Games in Munich, Los Angeles, Moscow, Atlanta and Athens – then the chance is lost. But if they are a success – as in Sydney, Beijing and hopefully London – then the raising of expectation is sure to follow.

The same can be said of World Cups, at least since they have been televised round the world, a phenomenon which began in Sweden in 1958.

As South Africa 2010 kicks off today, the football promises to be compelling and the stage is set for the biggest show on earth.

Despite the loss of stars such as Rio Ferdinand, Michael Ballack, Michael Essien and Nani and injuries also to Didier Drogba and Arjen Robben, the top trio are still standing. Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Wayne Rooney are the names which light up the eyes of the indigenous population here who love their football, even though many cannot afford tickets or the internet access which FIFA decreed as a requirement to buy the vast majority of them.

Spain and Brazil are rightly favourites, with Argentina and England not far behind and Holland making a late run on the inside, in the minds of the bookmakers at least.

Yet it is not what Messi and Ronaldo can do for the World Cup but what the World Cup can do for South Africa. There is no denying how far the nation has travelled in the 16 years since the fall of apartheid.

There is no denying the tangible benefits of this World Cup. Five new stadiums, new roads, refurbished airports, new transport links.

Yet the fears remain, despite 41,000 extra police officers having been deployed for the duration of the tournament.

They did not stop the stampede at the Nigeria-North Korea warm-up game in Johannesburg in which 14 fans and two policemen were injured. They did not stop the robbers who put a gun to the head of one Portuguese photographer and stole 30,000 of equipment while also robbing two other journalists while they slept in a hotel lodge in Magaliesburg.

Crime is endemic in this country – as commonplace as the spectacular views, as rife as the poverty.

True, the N4 road which many England fans will travel on their way to tomorrow's match against the USA, on their way from Pretoria to Rustenburg after hastening up the R21 from OR Tambo airport, does not contain the vast shanty towns which scar Johannesburg and Cape Town.

But every few miles smaller enclaves of squalor are there, hundreds, sometimes thousands of people, packed into corrugated shacks.

You see them walking down the hard shoulder with bits of timber in a feeble attempt to plug the holes in their existence in a land riven by unemployment and drugs and HIV and in which 50 people a day are murdered.

It is not a picture South African president Jacob Zuma wants to portray at today's opening ceremony. Nor is it one FIFA president Sepp Blatter wants to see.

Not when over the next five weeks they have to justify the 3bn it has cost South Africa to stage the tournament.

It is why Zuma and Blatter will be crossing their fingers and praying for a tournament which delivers in equal measure for football's global fans and the unfortunates of a tormented land.

No, it cannot be as well-organised as the most recent in Germany and Japan, probably the most meticulously efficient nations on the planet.

But with its fabulous winter sunshine, its remarkable scenery and the magnificent backdrop of Table Mountain in Cape Town, where the BBC have erected their studio on a hospital roof at a cost of 1m despite the opening ceremony and final being in Johannesburg, it promises to be memorable.

We hope for attacking football and not the cloying caution which has epitomised previous tournaments. We cannot wait to watch the thrilling canary yellow shirts of Brazil, the intricate passing of Spain and whatever Diego Maradona conjures up with Argentina.

We hope an Italian in Fabio Capello can do for England what a Swede, a 'Wally with a brolly' and the rest in the recent past could not.

Most of all we hope to see the 'Beautiful Game' match the beautiful game parks which show off South Africa in its brightest light.

And we hope that South Africa can take this opportunity and squeeze it for all that it is worth.

Japan and Korea did something similar eight years ago when they co-hosted a fantastic tournament which proved to the watching world that football, indeed the World Cup, is truly a global vehicle which can transform a nation.

America, Argentina, Spain and countless others have all taken full advantage of the football feel-good factor down the years and there is a dream that England, too, can win the right to stage the 2018 tournament and ensure they benefit from such exposure.

England can expect formidable opposition from Russia, who believe that hosting – and winning – a World Cup can increase a country's stature better and quicker than almost anything.

Now South Africans hope to see their own, sometimes fraught, crusade come to fruition, not just on the pitches and in the stands but across their entire economy, from the tourist trade to industry to education to housing.

Time has indeed shown that a successful World Cup is about far more than mere football and Danny Jordaan, the chief executive of the South African organising committee, appreciates the challenge.

"The perception has been that South Africa will never be ready; that the infrastructure won't be complete; that the stadiums won't be finished; that we will run out of money; that no one will come to South Africa. Now we will show the world the reality."

Let us hope they pull it off.