Former South African president Thabo Mbeki predicted the 2010 World Cup would be the moment when the African continent "turned the tide on centuries of poverty and conflict". It was a grand claim from a man of poetry as well as politics. But with one month to go to Africa's first World Cup, it is evident that such ambitions were never likely to be fulfilled by a sports event, no matter how big and how lucrative.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/davidbond/2010/05/will_the_world_cup_change_sout.html