Nine out of the 10 stadiums South Africa built as part of its agreement to host the 2010 World Cup are in the red, Reuters writes in a report about South Africa’s stadiums four yearsafter the tournament. Only Soccer City, the 94,000-capacity stadium between Johannesburg and Soweto that looks like a giant Calabash pot, comfortably pays its own way, according to its Web site,thanks to regular Soweto soccer derbies and concerts by the likes of Lady Gaga and U2.
However, the rest of the stadiums struggle to attract such top sporting contests orinternational rock stars. And the bill for their up-keep falls on cash-strapped municipalities, which Reuters says is a cautionary lesson for Brazil, where hundreds of thousands have protested,sometimes violently, against the state’s spending on this year’s tournament, which is expected to total nearly $12 billion — three times as much as South Africa’s budget.