page_title: 2010 FIFA World Cup
section_title: Resettlement and eviction
hierarchical_section_title: 2010 FIFA World Cup / Event effects / Social / Resettlement and eviction
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of Blikkiesdorp aka Symphony Way TRA (Cape Town)
context_page_description: The 2010 FIFA World Cup was the 19th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national association football teams. It took place in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010. The bidding process for hosting the tournament finals was open only to African nations. In 2004, the international football federation, FIFA, selected South Africa over Egypt and Morocco to become the first African nation to host the finals.
  The matches were played in 10 stadiums in nine host cities around the country, with the opening and final played at the Soccer City stadium in South Africa's largest city, Johannesburg. Thirty-two teams were selected for participation via a worldwide qualification tournament that began in August 2007. In the first round of the tournament finals, the teams competed in round-robin groups of four teams for points, with the top two teams in each group proceeding. These 16 teams advanced to the knockout stage, where three rounds of play decided which teams would participate in the final.
  In the final, Spain, the European champions, defeated third-time losing finalists the Netherlands 1–0 after extra time to win their first world title.
context_section_description: As with many 'hallmark events' throughout the world, the 2010 FIFA World Cup has been connected to evictions, which many claim are meant to 'beautify the city', impress visiting tourists, and hide shackdwellers. On 14 May 2009, the Durban-based shack-dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo took the KwaZulu-Natal government to court over their controversial Elimination and Prevention of Re-Emergence of Slums Act, meant to eliminate slums in South Africa and put homeless shackdwellers in transit camps in time for the 2010 World Cup.
  Another prominent controversy surrounding preparations for the World Cup was the N2 Gateway housing project in Cape Town, which planned to remove over 20,000 residents from the Joe Slovo Informal Settlement along the busy N2 Freeway and build rental flats and bond-houses in its place in time for the 2010 World Cup. NGOs, international human rights organisations, and the Anti-Eviction Campaign have publicly criticised the conditions in Blikkiesdorp and said that the camp has been used to accommodate poor families evicted to make way for the 2010 World Cup.
  However some have argued that evictions are ordinarily common in South Africa and that in the lead up to the tournament many evictions were erroneously ascribed to the World Cup.
caption: Police patrol Blikkiesdorp, a settlement for the evicted.
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