What is football (soccer) culture like in South Africa?

Question

How involved are footballers with the sport?

How do they interact with it - i.e. Watch games at stadium, watch it on TV, hear commentary on radio, read soccernet.com, newspapers etc?

Also how segregated is football? Do people of different races play together?

Do people play football often and if so, where do they play?

I am curious about South Africa's football culture since they are hosting the World Cup in 2010 and I was wondering how excited (or not) South Africans are about the prospect of hosting such an exciting event.

Ole! South Africa! Ole!

Answer 1

Football/Soccer is huge in SA ..... the 3 main sports are:
*Soccer
*Rugby
*Cricket

the culture is the same as it is everywhere.And the sports gets media coverage from all areas, tv, radio, print. There's rivalry amongst neighbouring teams as well, a good example would be:

Kaizer Chiefs vs Orlando Pirates

it's like:
*Manchester United vs Liverpool
*Arsenal vs Tottenham Hotspurs

so you sort of get the idea!!! :-) There is no more apartheid in SA, so races mix in everything ... sports, music, tv, fashion.

We have our own League as well -- The PSL (Premier Soccer League). So we play all the time. One of the more popular stadiums, is FNB Stadium situated in Johannesburg.

The popular teams are:
*Kaizer Chiefs
*Orlando Pirates
*Moroka Swallows
*Mamelodi Sundowns
and obviously, there's a whole lot more!!!

Some of our famous players that have made debuts on the world stage are:
*Lucas Radebe - Leeds (but he's retired now)
*Shaun Bartlett - Charlton
*Mark Fish - Charlton
*Quinton Fortune - Manchester United, but I think now he plays for City.
*Benedict McCarthy - FC Porto and now Blackburn - one of the top goal scorers in the league at the moment *yeah baby*
*Stanton Fredericks - FK Moscow, but he's gone home to Orlando Pirates now.
the list is endless .....

We're all excited about 2010 ~*Madiba Magic*~ !!! :-)

We still have a lot to do, but we remain positive that we can pull it off. Obviously it means the WORLD to us, that such an extraordinary event is now placed in our hands.

We are certainly gonna make the world sit up take notice =]

VIVA SA VIVA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 2

South Africa like the rest of Africa are very big soccer fans. The people in Africa can not get enough about soccer, they read about it in the newspapers, watch it on TV, listen to the game on radio,and everyone wants to go to the game but there is not enough seat in the stadium ... soccer is the main sport in South Africa,It doesn't matter what age you are from the very young to the very old. Everyone enjoy it .
Since the elimination of segregation in 1990,soccer has thrived, so South Africa team which is called Bafana Bafana ( like Dream team for the US basket ball team) has people from both races black and white , People plays soccer in South Africa daily .They like it so much everyone is very excited about the prospect of hosting the World Cup
I from Cameroon Africa ,So I no exactly what I'm talking about