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In Kenya banks offer special credit packages targeted at football fans and companies run competitions whose ultimate prize is a paid trip to South Africa.

All eyes are on South Africa as the countdown to the biggest sporting extravaganza, the FIFA World Cup, continues. South Africa expects to host half a million fans who will troop there to witness the sporting spectacle.

That Africans are ecstatic about the event being held on African soil cannot be gainsaid. It is indeed a great honour as the world converges on the continent. South Africa has the biggest gains to make from the event. If all goes well.

The dollars will definitely roll in with the fans and players. South Africa is bracing for a business boom, which could not have come at a better time as it grapples with an economic recession, the kind of which has not been witnessed there in about two decades.

But the country, which has for long been dogged by the dragon of insecurity, has a golden chance to slay it before the whole world. According to media reports, South Africa has recruited thousands more police officers, 40,000 of whom are specially trained to protect the stadia where the games will be held, the hotels and major transport routes. They have also roped in Interpol to help in securing the guests and investments which are growing significantly in anticipation of the bonanza in 2010.

That the biggest tournament of the most beautiful game in the world is being held in Africa shows how much the sport has grown in the continent. Africa will be well represented at the World Cup by Ghana, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Algeria and South Africa, and fans from all over the continent are planning a well deserved trip down south to witness the grandeur of the game.

“We have always maintained that the World Cup does not belong to South Africa alone. It is Africa's World Cup," Phumi Dhlomo, a South African Tourism official was recently quoted as saying in allAfrica.com.

In Kenya, some fans have been saving for the past five years to go to South Africa. Banks have offered special credit packages targeted at football fans and there are companies running competitions whose ultimate prize is a paid trip to South Africa to watch the World Cup. UAP Insurance started a special savings policy for the World Cup about five years ago and many banks are offering package loans for people wishing to travel down south.

Some workers have planned their annual holidays around the event and companies such as LG are restocking television sets to cater for the needs of those who will not go to South Africa.

Whatever the outcome of the tournament, the World Cup has already begun changing lives in Africa. About a month ago, Reuters ran a story about South African grannies who have begun playing football in township competitions. Twice a week they swap domestic chores for football, donning football boots instead of their usual rubber sandals to play in local matches. The 35 women on the Vakhegula Vakhegula squad — meaning “Grannies” in the local Xitsonga dialect — range in age from 40 to over 80. The team has proposed playing a curtain-raiser before one of the first-round World Cup matches and said national football authorities had told them they would consider the idea. Good Luck!

The excitement in Africa was palpable when the holy grail of sports, the 13cm, 18-carat gold World Cup trophy, was taken on a tour of the continent recently. When it arrived in Kenya, all business came to a standstill. Local television stations beamed the goings-on live. “God has come to Nairobi,” one radio station told its listeners. There was a whole day of viewing the trophy at the Nyayo National Stadium in Nairobi and all roads led there. Kenyans even felt honoured that one of the security team members is Kenyan.

Politics, which usually dominates the national debate and media headlines, took a back banner for a weekend.