People seen at Green Point soccer stadium during a ceremony to mark the one year count down to the... 
(Schalk van Zuydam/AP Photo)
South Africa kicked off the one-year countdown to the World Cup in a ceremony Thursday at a nearly complete stadium nestled between mighty Table Mountain, the glistening Atlantic and overlooking Nelson Mandela's former Robben Island prison.
"We have made it," South African President Jacob Zuma said as he kicked a ball off a stand at Cape Town's Greenpoint stadium.
"Now is just one year before there is kickoff," Zuma said to cheers from construction workers and the honking of plastic horns known as vuvuzelas which are set to become one of the tournament's hallmarks.
The 68,000-seat stadium, due to be completed in December, has come to symbolize the pitfalls and the prizes associated with hosting the first World Cup on African soil.
It was long delayed by objections from local residents outraged at the prospect of raucous football fans disrupting the tranquility of some of South Africa's most expensive real estate. The cost of 4.45 billion rands ($550 million) is way more than originally budgeted and there are fears that it may become a very expensive white elephant after the whistle blows on the semifinal it hosts.
But it has also provided a platform for Cape Town authorities to launch a massive 12 billion rand ($1.5 billion) infrastructure program to upgrade transport and other facilities that would otherwise have been neglected.
That pattern is repeated in other host cities. The government says the infrastructure investment — which was planned and budgeted for while the economy was blooming — will help create valuable jobs and give an important stimulus as South Africa muddles through its first recession in 17 years.
"It's the best possible time to have investment," said Michael Jordaan, the chief executive officer of South Africa's First National Bank. "It is the most wonderful thing that we have a deadline. We have to get the stadium ready and the roads. It's very fortuitous that the timing hits us right now.
