CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Ticker-tape parades, jubilant crowds and inspirational headlines greeted South Africa's victorious World Cup bid.
The country is riding a big wave of optimism, hoping the 2010 World Cup will heighten economic prosperity and social harmony in a nation once shunned in international sports.
The country's sports and business leaders returned to Johannesburg on Sunday on South African Airways Flight 2010 — renamed for the occasion — after winning the World Cup rights a day earlier in Switzerland.
Then they were whisked to an open-top bus for a ticker-tape parade in the sprawling townships of Alexandra and Soweto.
"Viva, FIFA, Viva," headlined Cape Town's Sunday Argus. "World Cup 2010 will heal the nation," said the paper, referring to the lingering racial wounds left by decades of apartheid.
Blacks and whites alike celebrated through the weekend in an outpouring of joy unseen since Freedom Day in 1994, when South Africa held its first multiracial elections.
Soccer is the preferred sport of South Africa's black majority, while the white minority favors cricket and rugby. But just as blacks rejoiced when South Africa hosted and won the Rugby World Cup in 1995, so now whites are expected to throw their hearts into soccer.
"The future is bright and they (the youth) must build on it," bid chief Danny Jordaan said as the victory tour paused at Soweto's Hector Peterson Memorial, built to honor a boy who was shot dead by the police in 1976.
President Thabo Mbeki said World Cup preparations would start Monday. Most of the stadiums already exist, and only four proposed venues — in Pretoria, Nelspruit, Port Elizabeth and Kimberley — need to be built.
The tournament is expected to take place in June, the start of the South African winter. Organizers envisage Johannesburg as the focal point, hosting the opening game, the final and one semifinal. The other semifinal most likely will be in Durban.
It is estimated that spending on venues and infrastructure will cost $329 million. The tournament is expected to bring $3.1 billion to the economy, create an additional 160,000 jobs and give an inestimable boost in international prestige.
Violent crime most likely will remain a problem, especially in Johannesburg. But authorities anticipate stringent security and stress that big events like the rugby and cricket World Cups and U.N. summits were virtually free of trouble.
The South African bid was championed by Nelson Mandela, and the 85-year-old former president was beaming as he clutched the World Cup trophy after the announcement.
South Africa, which lost to Germany by one vote in balloting for the 2006 World Cup, this time beat Morocco in a 14-10 vote by the FIFA executive committee. FIFA had declared that only African nations could contend for this World Cup.
Chuck Blazer, one of three members from the North and Central American and Caribbean region and the only U.S. representative, said he voted for South Africa.
The three CONCACAF members nearly always vote in a bloc, meaning CONCACAF president Jack Warner and Costa Rica's Isaac David Sasso Sasso probably supported South Africa over Morocco.
"I think it came down to the infrastructure was the best, and that certainly was supported by the technical report on South Africa," Blazer said Sunday in a telephone interview from Paris.