About Me

I ramble about a number of things - but travel experiences, movies and music feature prominently. See my label cloud for a better idea. All comnments and opinions on this blog are my own, and do not in any way reflect the opinions/position of my employer (past/current/future).

21 June 2010

Fan Diplomacy

On Saturday, I sat next to C, a temporary dimplomat working in the German Embassy. The German embassy has created a fan embassy, travelling around with the German team. The intention is to expedite any issues German visitors may encounter in SA - typical German efficiency! That said, C, did think that it was just an excuse to travel around SA watching football. C, the temporary dimplomat was in SA to staff the normal embassy operations - and he didn't mind as he is taking the opportunity to watch as many games as he can!

What was most interesting however, was his comments on the world cup so far. In his knowledge, there have only been two incidences that have been dealt with the fan embassy - lost passports in Durban. On that basis, this has been a very much trouble free WC - and that is great news to hear!

He did think that PE was not a good choice for game venue - it was simply too far from other venues; and that is his rationalle on why the games haven't been well atteneded. PE is too far to drive from Gauteng for a day trip (unlike Nelspruit, Polokwane and Rustenburg) or in fact from Durban and CT. In many respects I agree - but I also think the Arts Fest etc. did not advertise well enough of the merits and could have made it work better.

2 comments:

Sarai Pahla said...

Why "Dim" and not "Dip"? Is that ze german spelling? ;)

alapan said...

I have no idea - but worse, I repeated it so many times! Thanks for pointing it out.