On Sunday 11 July, the curtains came down in South Africa on the 2010 Fifa World Cup held – peacefully – for the first time in Africa. It was indeed a great football festival!

So please lend me your ears, because the fact-sheet is out and it contains this message: This World Cup was the most successful tournament by all standards in Fifa’s history. The organisation was smooth and perfect. Attendance at matches went beyond expectation, shattering the American record in 1994.

And where else, if not in Africa, could you have such a colourful multitude of passionate fans in a sustained party mood for a whole month. Yes, Africa knows how to welcome visitors and how to throw a splendid party too.
So, by now you are familiar with the powerful sound of the vuvuzela, and you may have already experienced what
jabulani is – all courtesy of an excellent and expertly organised football fiesta in Africa that brought the peoples of the world much closer together in the spirit of Ubuntu. Sport – and football in particular – has the potential to unite a country, continent and people across different cultures. Fifa has done well in that respect.

I therefore take this opportunity to extend congratulations to Spain for winning their first World Cup trophy – and on African soil! I look expectantly toward Brazil in 2014, and hope for better luck next time for the African teams.
Although the expected great performance by Africa did not materialise, I take consolation in the fact that South Africa has presented the world with a spectacular and flawless tournament on behalf of the whole continent. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, for anyone outside our continent to doubt the ability of the African to succeed in any endeavour. And this is the enduring legacy of this World Cup.

President Jacob Zuma is already talking about South Africa hosting the Olympics. And why not? As we keep improving, hopefully, one day very soon an African nation will win the World Cup.