World Cup Diary: Muti fails to save Bafana Bafana

FIFA is finding itself under siege here over its heavy-handed response to an ambush marketing stunt where Dutch brewer Bavaria deployed a bunch of pretty girls in orange-coloured Bavaria dresses at Soccer City Stadium in Joburg.

The girls were detained and questioned by police, with FIFA saying it had to defend the interests of its official paying sponsors, in this case the American beer Budweiser. Now a whiole bunch of South African companies have jumped on the badwagon to rile FIFA with cheeky stunts celebrating their status as non-partners of the World Cup. Discount airline Kulula, which uses similar marketing tactics to Virgin back home, was threatened with legal action by FIFA for promoting itself as “The Unofficial National Carrier of the You-Know-What.” Metcash Bank was also threatened for the seemingly innocuous act of giving away lolllipops which simply read “2010 Lollipops.” In protest at all this a businessman in Capetown is doing a handy trade selling T-shirts that say “Fick Fufa.” “FIFA has turned this country into its private little fiefdom,” columnist Brendan Seery wrote in the Saturday Star. “We’ve been quite happy to put aside the constitutional freedoms we are known for to satisfy these money-grubbing Europeans, which most of them are.”

You have to admire the easy-going philosophical approach taken by Nigeria’s Sani Kaita after he received more than 1000 death threats from fans furious at his reckless play and send-off in the Greece match. While Nigeria’s team spokesman Peterside Idah said “we are taking the threats very seriously”, Kaita remained laidback. “As a Muslim only God decides who lives and who dies,” he said.

With security at something of a high here in South Africa a chemical company near Soccer City stadium in Johannesburg showed an exquisite sense of timing when it decided to test a new brand of explosive on Monday, without alerting anyone first. Panicked journalists at the stadium feared al Qaeda might have made good on its threat to target the Cup. Turned out it was just the company blowing something up.

We’re not sure what passes for quality control at FIFA but despite a string of questionable decisions - two of which blew a major hole in the Australian attack - its head of refereeing thinks everything is tickety-boo. While graciously conceding that some decisions were “not good”, referees’ boss José María García-Aranda said he was “very, very happy” with the performance so far. He wouldn’t comment on specific cases though such as Tim Cahill’s red card or the fact the poor USA would have beated Slovenia 3-2 if not for the baffling disallowance of its late goal. The press conference was a classic case of FIFA media management with journalists told in advance that they were not allowed to discuss the performance of individual referees or specific decisions they had made.

Every profession has its slang so why should the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade be any different? Confidential understands that the consular staff in South Africa have taken to referring to Australians who get intro strife as “Jerrys”. Readers may recall that two weeks ago a keen Aussie drinker got himself into two scrapes in as many days - passing out while shickered on the front lawn of a private residence, the owners of which kindly gave him a coffee the next morning upon discovering him in their yard, and referring him to High Commission, and then the following day, getting robbed while drunk at the USA-Australia friendly and calling on the consular staff again. The chap’s name was Jerry and he’s now become the nickname of choice for any Aussie who lands himself in strife here. Mercifully there haven’t been many Jerrys, save for the odd lost passport or low-level theft.

The ludicrous system of mixed zone interviews - whereby players who have just trained or played a game run a gauntlet of journalists who form small groups to interview them in a line - has sparked some of the more ridiculous scenes of the World Cup. One Australian journo became so addled this week that when he spied our solo goalscorer of the tournament Brett Holman giving an interview to another scribe, he dashed over and stuck his microphone under their noses. He was oblivious to the fact that the entire interview was being conducted in Dutch - Holman plays in the Netherlands for AZ Allkmaar and is fluent in the language, as was the Dutch journalist.

Don’t miss: Get The Punch in your inbox every day

Get The Punch on Facebook