JOHANNESBURG,  (Reuters) – South Africa’s World Cup  stadiums could change the image of Africa forever, or stand as  spectacular monuments to extravagance and waste in a country  still struggling to spread the fruits of majority rule.

South Africa has confounded sceptics who said the stadiums  would never be finished in time for  June’s soccer  spectacular and is close to completing 10 top class venues that  bear comparison with the world’s best.

But while that controversy has passed, the debate has not  diminished over whether Africa’s first World Cup should have  been more modest, freeing up millions of dollars to help an army  of poor who live in squalor 15 years after the end of apartheid.   When Pretoria won the right to stage the 2010 tournament  back in 2004, it set the budget for stadiums at around 3 billion  rand ($390 million). After the addition of two extra arenas and  some dazzling architectural overlays, that figure has now  escalated to at least 13 billion rand ($1.7 billion).   Critics say the money was wasted and should have been spent  on alleviating poverty — which feeds South Africa’s frightening  rate of violent crime — building millions of new houses to  replace apartheid-era shanty towns and combating the world’s  biggest HIV caseload. They charge that many of the stadiums will  quickly become unused relics after the tournament.

“When you build enormous stadia, you are shifting those  resources…from building schools and hospitals and then you  have these huge structures standing empty…They become white  elephants,” the late anti-apartheid campaigner Dennis Brutus  said in the recent documentary film Fahrenheit 2010.

“Will it ever be possible for a (ruling) ANC party  politician who claims to have the mandate of poor blacks in this  country to go and stand in some of these poor areas and justify  why the government saw fit to spend a billion rand or more on a  stadium? It cannot be done,” Frans Cronje, deputy CEO of the  South African Institute of Race Relations told Reuters.

ARGUMENT
But there is another side to the argument that says the  World Cup gives Africa the chance finally to reverse stereotypes  of famine, pestilence and war that still blight the continent. Nobel peace prize laureate and anti-apartheid hero  Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said the World Cup will have as big  an impact for black people as the election of U.S. President  Barack Obama and will give new pride to a still divided nation.

“With all the negative things that are taking place in  Africa, this is a superb moment for us. If we are going to have  white elephants, so be it,” he said.

Economists also say World Cup construction has cushioned  South Africa from the global recession and will contribute close  to 56 billion rand ($7.3 billion) to the economy. “It has been a  huge blessing for South Africa in view of the recession,” said  Gillian Saunders of business consultants Grant Thornton.

The World Cup cannot be detached from its context, a country  still scarred by apartheid where soccer is the passion of the  black majority — who sometimes in the past had to go cap in  hand to white-run rugby stadiums to stage matches.

“Under the apartheid government, football facilities in  disadvantaged areas were neglected and there was a complete lack  of recognition for the sport,” the local organising committee  said this year.

The newly built stadiums certainly go beyond what is  strictly necessary to stage a football match, even one watched  by the world’s biggest television audience.

From the soaring arch and sky train over Durban’s oceanside  venue to Cape Town’s majestic arena between Table Mountain and  the Atlantic, to the white petals shrouding Port Elizabeth’s  bowl and the huge, calabash-shaped Soccer City stadium in  Johannesburg, the new stadiums are magnificent.

Even the smaller arenas of Nelspruit and Polokwane have  their own unique architectural flourishes, although with no top  rugby or soccer teams here or in Port Elizabeth it is harder to  rebut charges that these stadiums will become white elephants  after a few World Cup matches.

AFFIRMATION

Nevertheless, the stadiums’ spectacular style can perhaps be  seen as going way beyond football — the affirmation of the  capabilities of a young, democratic country in the face of  doubts and cynicism both at home and abroad.   “For the many little boys kicking a ball in the streets of  the world’s townships and squatter camps, football is the stuff  of dreams,” said commentator Tinyiko Sam

“I will not deny millions of boys in Africa and all over the  chance to watch their idols strut their stuff on African soil. I  will not deny them inspiration. 2010 is about much more than  money and text-book definitions of development,” he said in the  Mail and Guardian newspaper. Cronje said the World Cup would not drag South Africa out of  poverty “but it does something else. It puts Africa quite  directly in front of the rest of the world…the impression of  Africa as a continent will shift.”

“Nobody who is poor and lives in a shack is going to be  living in different circumstances when the final whistle is  blown….but it may happen in the long term that people go back  to the soccer World Cup and say it was a milestone of change on  the continent and in the way the continent is regarded.”

One South African World Cup official, who asked not to be  identified, told Reuters: “Football means a lot to these people  in our country. This is not a panacea but it has lifted our  people’s psyche, lifted their belief in themselves.”