Description
This film was made leading up to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. We look at a match between a wealthy football team and a poor one. The game highlights the social and racial divides in the country 16 years after the end of apartheid. In 1990, the world looked on in astonishment as the apartheid regime freed Nelson Mandela from prison and South Africa galloped towards reconciliation. Two decades later, the 2010 Soccer World Finals puts the country in the spotlight once again.
This report was filmed in Johannesburg and covers two 20-year old football players. Tshepo plays for an all-black team from Soweto. The players are free men but their future looks bleak. Brett captains a mainly white team from a well-to-do suburb. The end of apartheid has done little to narrow the social divide. The white minority has lost political power but it continues to run the economy and enjoys a high standard of living. There are four black players on Brett’s team. One of them is Thulani, who represents South Africa’s burgeoning middle class.