By Inas Mazhar In the months leading up to the 2010 World Cup vote, President Hosni Mubarak told FIFA President Joseph Blatter in Cairo that regardless of which the nation hosted the Cup, the winner would be Africa because the continent would have been finally recognised for being capable of throwing a good party and responsible enough to organise one of the world's most prestigious sports events. However, amidst the uproar caused by our failure to win the bid and in fact to garner even one vote, we forgot to congratulate our South African friends for their victory. I hope it's not too late to say we are proud of them. We might envy them for not being in their shoes but we're only human. We genuinely wish the South Africans the best of luck in staging the championship, the first ever in Africa. Our tardy congratulations is because the "zero" issue has taken a lot of our time. For the past three weeks since the vote we have been busy with investigations and Q&A sessions in the People's Assembly involving the youth minister and the Egyptian delegation he led to the unprecedented zilch. The flood of stories in government and opposition newspapers and magazines, as well as TV and radio has also not receded. What is clear is that the more the minister and the bid file committee members refuse to admit their mistakes and that they miscalculated terribly, the more the media attacks increase, as do calls for an apology, sackings and the minister's resignation. So far, none of this has transpired. There has been no admission of guilt, no apology, no firings and no resignations. There's obviously something wrong, probably in the entire system, for the same scenario is repeated every time we find ourselves on the losing end. There was the Atlanta Games (not a single medal won after predictions of a medal deluge), malaria (death from the disease, which perhaps could have been avoided, at the Nigerian All-Africa Games) the African Nations Cup (an appearance in the final was projected; we left after the first round) and the national team's head coaches (thousands of dollars for them, little in return from them). All these issues went to the People's Assembly. And in all cases, no-one took responsibility. In the end, each and every case was forgotten, to be recalled only when another scandal erupts. And it's happening this time as well. 2010 is getting close to joining the rest of the issues gathering dust on the shelves. Angry parliamentarians have thus far been unable to put their finger on who is to blame. And the bid file committee members are not helping after they started accusing FIFA of receiving bribes from South Africa, claiming that it was the major reason of our failure. Such slander will put us on the blacklist of the game's world governing body. Why don't we just admit that South Africa earned its votes? I can assure you that we will soon forget and move on to other issues like the coming Summer Olympic Games in Athens and the Arab Games in Algeria in September, both of which might bring with them other controversies. South Africa has already named its 2010 committee, those who will continue working on the event for the next six years. In recognition of their efforts in hooking the event, Irvin Khoza, chairman of South Africa's bidding committee, and Danny Jordaan, the tireless chief executive of the bid, are both on the committee. They will be joined by former provincial premier Tokyo Sexwale and sponsorship expert Selwyn Nathan. They all agreed that while they were ready for the task, there was much work ahead of the country. I am certain that if we were awarded the event, serious work would not have started until a year before the kick-off. That is one of the biggest differences between us and them. And the fact that only four people were named is indicative of something else: better to have just a few competent individuals for a task than a bevy of so-called experts lacking the required skills.
