Africans Not Buying Tickets to SA 2010

This isn't how this was supposed to work out. But it probably shouldn't be a surprise.

It costs real money to go to a World Cup. Especially one outside your country.

Turns out, the Johannesburg Sunday Times writes, Africans aren't buying many World Cup tickets, according to 2010 World Cup organizers. Most of the tickets being bought from out of the country, so far, are going to Europe and to the United States. To places where people have money, that is.

Which makes sense, considering Africa is the poorest continent on the planet ... that it has several countries with a per capita income of about $200. (That's $200 per year.) ... Considering that air travel within the African continent is dangerous and sketchy, often involving flights out of Africa, and back to Europe, to get to Johannesburg.

(Imagine living in New York and having to fly to Mexico to get a plane to take you to Washington. Pretty much the same thing.)

Anyway, yes, it's a shame that so few Africans will be at SA 2010. Or so it seems.

Organizers hold out hope that sales will go up when the five other African teams that will play in South Africa 2010 are identified, in the next few months.

But when the options are "World Cup tickets" and "eating this month" ... well, sensible people all over the globe are going to make the sane decision.