The Horn That Divided the World Cup

Every four years, dozens of football teams from around the world

“that's the soccer kind of football for our American listeners gather”

free time on our tradition. The World Cup. And every four years, millions of football fans from around the world gather for another time on our tradition. Being mad at the World Cup. Partly, they're mad at the opposing teams. That's the fun kind of mad. But they're also mad at FIFA, the negatively corrupt organization that runs the tournament. This year, the main reason to be mad at FIFA is for outrageous price-couching.

They're new dynamic ticketing system, along with their blatantly self-dealing resale market, or causing ticket prices to skyrocket. The most expensive seats for the previous World Cup final were $1,600. When the first round of tickets for this year's final went on sale,

“the cheapest seats in the house started at a staggering $2,790. Then they more than doubled”

in later rounds. For those who missed the pre-sales, there's always FIFA's resale market,

where they take a hefty 15% cut from both buyers and sellers. Seats behind the goal for that final game were recently listed there for $2.3 million each. Last year, also saw FIFA award a sick of manic peace prize to the sitting U.S. President. The lead-up to the 2022 tournament in Qatar had numerous human rights violations in the construction of the stadiums, reportedly leading to the deaths of hundreds of migrant workers. The cup before that was hosted by Russia and the

wake of their annexation of Crimea. And in 2015, 11 FIFA officials were indicted for accepting over $150 million in bribes. So we thought we'd take you back to a comparatively

“clean world cup controversy from 2010. Plastic horns that were just too dang loud. Enjoy.”

In the spring of 2004, journalist Mark Gleason sat in the front row of a small conference room in Switzerland for a big announcement. There was a dramatic build-up, there was a lot of tension, everyone was an edge. The winning bid to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup was about to be revealed and South Africa was among the leading contenders. I mean, they had all the top guns go to Zurich for that particular announcement. Mandela was there, Bishop Tutu was there, the former President

of Clack was there. South Africa wanted to be the first African nation to host the World Cup.

They also wanted the tournament to be the start of a new chapter. During apartheid, the country was banned from the international sporting community. Now they were on the precipice of hosting soccer's biggest event. South Africans gathered in the streets of Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban to await FIFA's decision. I discovered it with you. The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be organised in South Africa. South Africa had come full circle in the sense of its horrible

past and how it had moved on from being a pariah state and was now hosting the biggest event in World Sport and very much part of the international family. The celebrations that erupted that day in Zurich were full of cheers and whistles, but also one notorious sound that came to define South Africa's World Cup. The sound of the Vuvuzella Back in 2004, nobody really talked about Vuvuzella's. Even people in the soccer world didn't know

what they were. But 60 years later, by the time the first game of the tournament was underway, the Vuvuzella was the hottest word in sports. The 2010 FIFA World Cup is ready for kick-off to the sound of 80,000 Vuvuzella's. The fun of a funer. The Vuvuzella is a two-foot long injection molded plastic horn. It plays only one note, a B-flat, and it gradually became a regular

feature of South African soccer. But prior to the 2010 World Cup, the rest of the world had never

heard anything quite like it. And a lot of people hated it. It's been likened to a giant swarm of angry hornets or a herd of distraught elephants. It's so loud this lady with a Vuvuzella's ridiculous, it's not noisy, there's nothing irritating about it. It's nothing irritating, and they handle it. For fans watching abroad, the constant drone of Vuvuzella wasn't what the beautiful game typically sounded like. European soccer games or football games are often characterized

by songs and chants, bellowed by the supporters. But the home of 80,000 Vuvuzella's

French network TF1 opted to change their commentator's microphones for a kind that would eject

“more background noise. Other networks chose to use special audio filters to try and eliminate”

the Vuvuzella from their sound mix altogether. The controversy surrounding the Vuvuzella was hard to ignore. It drew attention away from the players on the field and placed the focus on the crowd in the stadiums. It also sparked a debate about the history of the Vuvuzella and its true origins. For critics, the Vuvuzella was a relatively new mass-produced noisemaker. But for supporters, they tended to think of the Vuvuzella as an instrument,

allowed attention-grupping sound that grew out of South Africa's rich football

incudition. In 1862, there was already documented matches that took place in Cape Town and Porto-Lisabeth. That's South African football historian Peter Releggi. And that is a year before the football

“association was even founded in England and before the first rules of association football were”

codified. Originally, the sport was introduced by British colonizers, seeking to impose their beliefs and values on the locals. But quickly, South Africans embraced football and made it their own. It's an interesting story whereby a colonial game really was transformed into a pillar

of black culture by the racially oppressed. The game was both affordable and accessible,

becoming the sport of the black working class. And when I use the term black, I'm referring to people who either are self-identified or were made or classified under a partate as African, Indian, or South Asian, and colored or a multi-racial football was not held in high regard by officials in the apartheid regime. Sports played predominantly by white South Africans like cricket and rugby

“were the ones that received political backing. So as a way to help organize themselves,”

football teams formed supporters clubs. These were small but mighty organizations made up of fans from each city or town. Supporters clubs would hold funeratises and hammer-at travel logistics to away matches. And black supporters clubs in particular played a special role, giving black South Africans who had no say in their government a voice to shape their community through the local team. Members held elections for various positions in the supporters club and also

through their formal organization, they tried to influence the football clubs internal affairs. And so the ability to campaign for office to achieve a kind of social honor and visibility by achieving these high offices was something that was highly valued, particularly in black communities. By the 1960s, supporter clubs existed all across South Africa and they made their presence known through the noise they generated on game days at the stadium.

Playing music at the grounds, chanting, singing, dancing, maybe insulting the opponents, this was something intensely pleasurable and entertaining. During this time, political opponents of the apartheid regime were banned from gathering. It was one of the many ways the government tried to suppress the liberation movement, but football games and the noise and crowd that came with them made it hard to prevent black politicians from sitting together. It provided cover

in a way by allowing activists to have conversations and even organize particular subversive activities and in doing so kind of undermining the white states surveillance and censorship. The stadiums were a sort of sanctuary, a place where you could get rowdy and thumb your nose at the government where you could fly the flag of the anti-apartade movement while rooting for your favorite team. It was also the place where you could hear one charismatic fan pick up his horn and make a sound

that would soon be heard around the world. This is Freddie Marquet. Freddie actually prefers to be called Saddam, an edgy nickname he received during the Gulf War because he used to set off huge firecrackers at football matches. People would say it sounded like the Iraq War on TV. Saddam Marquet is a soccer freak, or a super fan as they know in South Africa. The most passionate of football supporters.

It loves the South Africa national team and his local club Kaiser Cheeps from Johannesburg.

known as the Marca Rapa, painted it in the team's colours. But Saddam, you might say football is life.

“The soccer. I said, "Heeps is my first wife. You're my second wife. Every day every night,”

when I sleep, I sleep, I sleep, I sleep, I eat, I talk, I talk, I talk, I can't talk to you without talking about soccer." In between all the soccer chat, I did manage to learn where Saddam grew up. The province of Lim Popo, with his large family. His claim to the Viva Zella dates back to his childhood, and a gift he received to his birthday in 1965. He'd bring that horn to local football games to support his team,

but instead of squeezing the little rubber ball at the end, he'd take that off and blow into the horn. "I want doing that one to entertain the players, motivate them, and cut it to school,

“and just say that I'm with this one." 1965, when I arrived in Gran Speck. Saddam liked the sound”

the detached bicycle horn made. He called it Apala Fala. When his local football club the Kaiser Chiefs was established in 1970, Saddam says he brought a number of other homemade horn to the game.

This included a large aluminium horn, he called a boogie blast. The boogie blast was basically

a long metal stick you could blow into. It was also a long metal stick you could beat someone up with, so stadiums eventually banned it. But by then in 1989, Saddam says he met with a plastic manufacturer, and asked him to make a plastic version of the boogie blast. This new instrument they created sounded similar. "But it had a different name." "A collard, this one was ailer." Vivazora is derived from Zulu. "Vivazora mean,

welcome and unite, sending Vivazora welcome and unite." Saddam says he coined the name Vivazora back in 1992. A claim he supports with photos of him blowing his many horns at football games in the 70s and 80s and Avivazora in the 90s. He also recorded an album in 1999 titled Vivazora, Sallula. Saddam tried selling some of these plastic horns at football matches,

but it just never really gained traction. Even at Kaiser Chiefs games, it would often be one of

the only supporters in the crowd blowing Vivazora. However, that slowly started to change when a company in Cape Town started mass producing their own plastic horns, which they also called, Vivazora.

“The company's name is Massen Fedani Sports. The click is important because the name of the company”

is from Iskosa. This is Dwayne Jethro. He studies South African culture and wrote about the history of the Vivazora. Dwayne says that back in 2001, Nilván Skalkvik and his partner Bevel Pakman got funding to get their business off the ground. He pitched this idea of injection molding a horn to a certain size and a certain specification that would be easily used at football matches. Around the same time, this new company was getting started. Saddam Marka says he approached

Nilván Skalkvik to tell him that he was the true inventor of the Vivazora. Saddam says he tried to strike a business deal. Did you ever speak with Nilván? Yes, I speak with Nilván. Yes, I'm going

to get a firecrack out of Iskosa. I never get even a friend, but I didn't worry. I didn't complain.

I said to myself, "God is great." We tried to track Nilván Skalkvik down for an interview but Ron successful. According to media reports, he denied ever mating with Saddam Marka in 2001. In interviews, Vens Skalkvik didn't claim to be the inventor of the Vavazora, but he and his company assert that they did popularize it. Their version of the horn was cheaper and safer, and that you couldn't beat someone up with one. Actually, Roman, you technically

could beat someone up with it. Right, you just, it wouldn't hurt as bad. Well, look, you know, we were at the forefront of developing the first plastic version of a ten horn that used to be used in football, the aims of South Africa. Because those

that one. Initially, Vens Skalkvik's company also struggled to sell their Vivazora's allies,

“but that changed when they started to focus on the marketing. The company had that Vavazora's”

were free, football matches, and partnered with some local clubs to get more of them into South Africa's stadiums. It wasn't long before there was more interest in the Vivazora and sales started to grow. Soon, the instrument could be distinctly heard at games across the country. The Vavazora effectively being a generic horn meant that Vens Skalkvik wasn't able to patent the design, but the word Vavazora was unique, so his company got a trademark for the name.

And as South Africa prepared their bid to host the 2010 World Cup, Vens Skalkvik and his company

were ready to capitalize on the event. The company's efforts were designed to position the

Vivazora as authentic, including its official slogan, "The Regional Sound of South Africa." They recognized that there was a marketing opportunity in having the Vavazora in the hands of

“important South African footballing officials, but also politicians that were trying to”

drum up support both locally and internationally for South Africa's bud. So what you saw was things like the gifting of Vavazora's diplomatic gifts on local stages, politicians were handed for Vavazora's etc. When FIFA announced South Africa's winning bid to host the tournament, the joyful celebrations included these plastic Vavazoras. The aggressive marketing worked, and the lead-up to the World Cup, the sound of South

African football was inextricably linked to the Vavazora. The instrument even appeared in National Marketing Campaigns, fronted by prominent rugby players who had been called in to promote the 2009 Confederation's Cup, a sort of test-run tournament for the World Cup. The Confederation's Cup was the first time a global TV audience had been exposed to the Vavazora. Not long after the first game, the international debate started taking off.

Constant droning was going on there before the trumpet looking, I don't know how they have enough

air in their lungs, and it never ends. And it is just like you are being attacked by a swarm

of locus for 90 consecutive minutes. I know exactly what you're talking about. How can they constantly do that? I don't know. I don't know if they take turns, but it is medium reports were quick to raise concerns about the Vavazora's potential impact on the World Cup. Set Bladder, the beloved and totally non-controversial FIFA president, was asked if the Vavazora was going to be banned at the upcoming World Cup.

To the surprise of many, he came out in support of the instrument, saying, "It is African culture. We are in Africa, and we have to allow them to practice their culture as much as they want to." He's generalist Mark Gleason again. It struck me at that point that that was the turning moment, because I do think it was a bit of an issue for FIFA, whether the Vavazora was going to be part of the 2010 World Cup or not.

“It's a moment, I remember very distinctly, and thinking to myself, this is the Vavazora now.”

We will have the Vavazora in 2010. From the moment the World Cup kicked off, the Vavazora was a constant and persistent presence. From the atmosphere and the stadiums to the jokes on late night TV, it was in this capable. While broadcasts were trying to mitigate the noise on their end, the RY solutions were making their way around the internet. One of them involved writing your TV's audio through your computer, and using software to remove the

particular frequencies of the Vavazora. And as the tournament continued, players on the field cited the Vavazora for causing communication problems. Lino Messi regarded by many as the best player in the world, even went so far as to blame the noise for his team conceding a goal. The complaints were even enough to inspire a study from a South African medical general. It measured the Vavazora's sound levels, which peaked at 131 decibels. That's as loud as a

jackhammer or a jet engine. It concluded that prolonged or regular exposure could cause noise and juice hearing loss. There was no middle ground with the Vavazora. You either loved it or hated it. Most of the Vavazora outrage came from a very Eurocentric perspective. It was an argument about what was considered appropriate in football fan culture, which, to enjoy, for a sense, was an attack on the idea of Africanness. It raises old ideas of Africa as a dark

continent, cultural forms from Africa as being primitive or outdated, etc. And I think that's

football association, but also South African fans started to speak back and speak out and to say that

this is how we represent ourselves in our sporting traditions and sporting fan culture. While the Vavazora was condemned by international audiences, it's also true that many visitors to South Africa embraced it. For comedian Trevor Noah and plenty of other South Africans,

“the appropriation was the problem. In South Africa, we should have a thing where you have to”

have a license to blow who was there. You can't just come here, not knowing who was there, etiquette blowing at randomly. The English fans, the Spanish fans, middle of the day, they are nine a.m. What are you doing? It's so much fun. It's wrong. It's the wrong people. You know who should be blowing the Vavazora's qualified skilled practitioners? Shifts and parents supporters. That's who should be blowing the Vavazora's. There's no doubt that for thousands of South Africans,

the Vavazora was an expression of national identity. But as the first African nation to host the

World Cup, the instrument came to represent more than just South Africa. For viewers watching around the world, it represented the sound of an entire continent. That was by design, FIFA and South Africa's organising committee marketed the tournament as Africa's World Cup. The slogan was "Selabrite Africa's Humanity," even the official song of the tournament,

“which you'll surely remember, proclaims this time is for Africa.”

And because the Vavazora became South to huge focal point of the event, Peter Relegi says the instrument got wrapped up in all the iconography of the tournament too. The government was keen on using it because it saw it as a symbol of Africanness. But there are also other African visitors who hated it, who said, "We have no tradition of horn blowing." Or I come from, so how is this supposed to represent

Pan-Africanism? The Disney vacation of the tournament made the Vavazora feel cheap, like the rest of the marketing around it. And with that cheapness, it came a certain skepticism about its authenticity. Despite the instrument being so criticised, people still wanted to claim credit for its existence. The disputes over its history and origin played outside by side with the tournament. One story, the press picked up, connected the Vavazora to the horn of the Kudo,

a species of antelope. Historically, animal horns have been used in South Africa and culture. But the theory linking the Kudo horn to the Vavazora was likely inspired by one supporter of the tame mammaloidy sundowns, who is known to bring the horn to football games. He is researcher Dwayne Jethro again. While it is absolutely true that we have Indigenous traditions of horn blowing in South Africa, with a and how we can trace a genealogy of the Vavazora all the way back to

those Indigenous traditions that's open to argument and debate. Another claim came from the Nazareth Baptist Church. Also known as the Shembei, who have a horn of their own. The Shembei Church operates in the Kuzulunatal area. It's from the heaven annual pilgrimage and during this annual pilgrimage, they use a horn called a Izibomo. When football fans were blowing the Vavazora, they felt that the Holy Spirit that was generated by their horn had been appropriated in

this context of football atmosphere. The Shembei first accused Saddam Markei,

of appropriating the Shembei Mu. They said he visited the Church in the 90s and fashioned his own version in plastic when he wasn't allowed to bring the metal horn into stadiums. Saddam denies these accusations. The Church threatened the legal action initially against FIFA and World Cup organizers before going after Neil van Skullkevik and his company. According to media reports at the time, the two parties eventually came to a settlement. All these claims regarding the origin

of the Vavazora are compelling in their own way, but it was the heightened context of the World Cup tournament that raised the stakes in the ownership debate. In all cultural heritage debates,

“origins and ownership are really important elements and strands of being able to claim a certain”

heritage tradition. You cannot claim a heritage tradition until you can claim ownership and a valid persuasive origin story. Despite the lack of a straightforward origin story, the Vavazora is still considered cultural heritage, at least in the eyes of some institutions. The United Kingdom's National Football Museum and the British Museum, both have Vavazora's in their collections. So if we use the collecting principles of these

entering into that heritage narrative. I mean the British Museum is no stranger to stealing credit

“for cultural artifacts, but if you look up the Vavazora's listing on their website,”

there is only one origin story they recognize. For me, to talk about this, Vavazora, you make my day. They attribute the invention to none other than Freddie Saddam Marquet. I'm feeling grateful because Vavazora is my baby. Saddam's story is the closest thing the Vavazora has to an actual origin story, and unlike the noise that surrounded the Vavazora in 2010, his story at its core is simple.

He loves his team and he wanted to start his support for them as loud as possible. Today, Vavazora's aren't nearly as prominent as they were back in 2010. A few years after the South African World Cup ended, FIFA turned around and banned them from all major tournaments, and several other major sports leagues have as well. But for Dwayne Jethro, that comes with

“us overlining. I'm very glad that no future World Cup tournament will be blessed with a beautiful sound”

of the Vavazora, that the sound will always remain sad African.

Just a few months ago, the South African women's football team won their first ever Africa Cup of Nations. When the team arrived to the airport that were greeted by fans expressing their national pride through songs and chance. Saddam Marke was there too, blowing his Vavazora. Then when I complained about the noise, the fans just celebrated the way they wanted to celebrate.

So I'm back with James Parkinson and you've got another story about football culture in South Africa for us. Yes, so a few other interesting details came up while

was working on this story, and it has to do with that culture of noise making in the stadiums.

“And I'm dropping you a picture now so you can see what I'm talking about.”

So this must be Saddam Marke, who we heard from in the piece, who has a really great voice and a really great look to go with it. Yes, this is Saddam of Vavazora fame. And in this picture he's decked out in all this gear screaming his lungs out at a football match. He's wearing a really large, comically yellow glasses and a helmet with all these different logos on it. And I see stickers of Kaiser Chiefs and even Orlando Pirates on it.

Yes, so what I want to talk about is that helmet, the Makarapa, because that was another item like the Vavazora that gained popularity during the World Cup. So the word Makarapa actually means scrapers. And scrapers is a reference to the migrant workers who used to move into cities like Johannesburg to work in the mines. People would say they scrape for a living. And so the story goes that Kaiser Chiefs fan, not Saddam this time, went to a

particularly rally game back in the 70s where he saw someone get hit in the head with a bottle. So naturally for the next game, he thought, you know, I just, I should wear that helmet. Yeah, exactly. All these people were in almost such a real man. Yep, so this fan started painting these helmets in the terms colors and selling them at games and it became a thing. But this isn't the only connection between the mines of South Africa

and Noisbaking in the stadiums. Duane, Jethro told me there's also this sound. It's a kind of alarm. It's a wind up alarm. It goes, ohhhhhhhhhh. Like an old aerate sound. Exactly. Yeah. And these alarms used to have this very specific use. It was the sound miners would hear it for their shift change at work. So fans would, you know, bring these handheld sirens to make noise at the games and they were pretty popular in the nineties. Yeah. Because these are working class fans. So they're

bringing what they have on them. They're bringing their helmets. They're bringing their sirens that they use in everyday life. Yeah, they're picking up their helmets and, you know, these alarms and sort of repurposing them to reflect their lives as miners in the culture of South African football. Oh, I love that. I love that. Yeah, one of my favorite examples of this is that they repurposed a work song they would sing in the mines that fans would then sing, you know, loudly it games. And

that's called Shaw Shaw Loza. And you sing it, it goes something like. Shaw Shaw Loza, Uzze, Zuta, Bastim, Velasum, Velasum, Velasum, Velasum, Velasum, Velasum. I don't know the words properly,

want to rise up to cut out and South Africans across the board know the song. And it speaks to

“migrants moving from different parts of South Africa to come and work on the mines. So Shaw Shaw”

Loza, this traditional minor song actually became quite popular in the 90s. People refer to it

as South Africa's second national anthem. It was sung in a colon response style by the workers to kind of

you know, generate a rhythm and also to alleviate stress from working long hard days on the ground. Shaw Shaw Loza means go forward or make the way for the next man. And famously Nelson Mandela spoke

“about how he would sing this song while he was in prisons on Robin Island off the coast of Cape Town,”

along with, you know, many other political prisoners. And the ways in which the song reflected

the struggle during apartheid. I mean it reminds me of something that you mentioned in the piece that you know, these games and the noise that, you know, surrounds them. I mean, yes, it's about, you know, sports and a game and about leisure and fun. But it's also like a certain amount of political resistance,

“just built into the fact that there's people singing along loudly in a stadium. They're playing”

instruments. And this is way to make noise for your team. But also, you know, let the powers of be

know that, you know, we're all here. There's a bunch of us and we're all here. Yeah, we're here and, you know, we're, we're really loud and we're going to, we're going to let you know. Well, thank you again, James. I mean, this was such a cool, fascinating history. I'm so glad that you shared it with us. Thanks for having me anytime. That story originally aired in 2022. It was produced by James Parkinson and edited by Jason Delion,

mixed by Martin Gonzalez, music by Swanry Al, with additional music provided by Freddy Saddam Marquet, fact-taking by Graham Haitia. Kathy Two is our executive producer. Kirk Colstead is the digital director to leave you all as our senior editor. Throw us a team includes Chris Peruvay, Emmett Fitzgerald, Christopher Johnson, Lashma Dawn, Vivienne Leigh, Joe Rosenberg, Kelly Prime, Jacob Medina Cleason, talent and range strategy, and me, Roman Morris. The 99% of his

logo was created by Stefan Lawrence. We are part of the series XM podcast family. Now, headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora building, in beautiful, uptown, Oakland, California. You can find us on all the usual social media sites as well as our own discord server. Also linked to that as well as every past episode of 99 P.I. at 99 P.I. dot org.