“Asked about preparation for the country hosting football's showpiece event - the first on African soil - 60% (of businesses) said they had looked at diversifying their product or service while 53% were employing more staff. In 46% of cases, firms were making additional investment into their business" – International consulting firm, Grant Thornton’s Survey on Business Investments for World Cup 2010.

Many South African companies have invested intensively in the 2010 FIFA World Cup preparation platforms, which will continue to benefit the country long after the spectacle of the world’s grandeur sporting competition. Here are a few notable local companies that have jumped in and got involved:

• After prolonged negotiations with football governing body FIFA, local mobile telephone operator, MTN, scored a winning goal by clinching the title of the first company to become a global sponsor of the World Cup. The deal means that MTN can market itself as a sponsor of the 2010 tournament across the world, and that it has the exclusive mobile content rights for Africa and the Middle East — the regions in which it mainly operates.
  
• First National Bank will be a national sponsor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup tournament, while the SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) has signed a broadcast deal.
  
• Sentech, the state owned national broadcasting signal distributor, is upgrading its capacity in preparation for 2010, and national electricity supplier, Eskom, is also boosting its capabilities.

Many other big and small South African companies are expected to get involved in the event in many different ways. The Grant Thornton study suggests that about three quarters of medium and large businesses in South Africa, expect to benefit financially from the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

But the 2010 benefit will not last just for the duration of the event. Many businesses are confident that they will continue to reap the benefits long after the world’s most televised sporting event.

Developments for the 2010 FIFA World Cup will continue to benefit South Africans long after the tournament is over, the Local Organising Committee (LOC) CEO, Danny Jordaan, told The Mail and Guardian newspaper. "There will be an impact on tourism, transport, sports facilities and on the economy, that will benefit the country even after the World Cup," he said.

Another confident business leader, Business Unity of South African (BUSA) President, Patrice Motsepe, backs Jordaan up by saying: “We are confident about our capacity to host the 2010 World Cup and we have admirably demonstrated our ability to host large-scale international events. Organised business would welcome the opportunity to be more actively engaged with government, and other stakeholders involved with preparations for the event. A consistent and vigorous communication strategy will become increasingly important now that the world's focus had turned from Germany to South Africa.”