The Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban has a natural advantage over Wembley in being a short walk from the beachfront rather than the North Circular, but it is the fine architecture that truly distinguishes it from our bulky corporate bowl.

In Durban, the arch manages not only to hold up the roof but to house a funicular car that will carry fans above the stadium to take in a view out to the Indian Ocean. Spectacular.

Those with even more daring can then climb out of the cable car to dangle on a bungee swing that will fly them, Superman-style, across the pitch. Eat that, Lord Foster, whose arch in Brent was nothing more than a decorative flourish.

The Mabhida stadium set the pulse racing (even without a go on the swing) for a group of us who made a whirlwind tour of South Africa’s World Cup preparations last week. Fears that stadiums would be half-finished seemed unfounded; paranoia about crime overstated.

The tournament will happen, and it will almost certainly be spectacular on television, or for those lucky enough to find a hotel room, but the question that has to be asked of any leading sporting event these days is whether the drama is enough given the billions spent on stadiums, on improving roads and building airports.

Legacy is the buzzword and, in South Africa, the organisers and hosts talk optimistically about how, among other things, the World Cup can help to bridge the nation’s racial divide.

No harm in being ambitious, but, this being South Africa, it is not so simple. Even the seemingly straightforward matter of who should occupy the Mabhida stadium post-World Cup has become a political hot potato where the refusal of Natal Sharks, the high-profile rugby union team, to move from the outmoded Kings Park (Absa Stadium) right across the road is interpreted as unnecessary clinging to tradition and independence.

Instead, the city’s two professional football teams, Lamontville Golden Arrows and AmaZulu, recently agreed to become anchor tenants of this magnificent 70,000-seat stadium even though, unlike the Sharks, they will struggle to fill the seats behind one goal even when it has shrunk to a 56,000-capacity.

So much for the Rainbow Nation, the coming together under one roof of football, the game from the townships, and white-dominated rugby. Race, inevitably, has been thrown into the mix, with Mato Madlala, owner of the Golden Arrows, claiming that the failure of the Sharks to move is a statement of division and not just one of heritage or finance.

“Things like this cause racial tension that is so unnecessary,” he said. “We need to help each other as sportspeople and work together, rather than putting the sports into different boxes, like this sport belongs to whites, this sport to Africans.”

How far these barriers still have to fall is underlined by the rugby fan who insisted that he would turn his back on the Sharks if they “move to the Moses Moholololololo stadium”. And the one who demanded to know: “Who the hell was Moses anyway?” (Leader of the South Africa Communist party and a hero of the anti-apartheid movement, since he asks.) Typical of the rugby’s fanbase they may not be, but 15 years after the first democratic elections in South Africa, no argument has to last too long before race will be mentioned by one side or other.

The first football World Cup to be staged in a developing country is, according to the optimists and organisers, meant to help to unite a nation. And it may yet.

At the offices of the Premier Soccer League in South Africa, they view the World Cup as the best chance yet of drawing the affluent white audience from their fanaticism for rugby or their bar stools from where they watch Liverpool and Manchester United.

Broadening the league’s audience, its demographic, is top of the agenda for Irving Khosa, its chairman, who believes that the white supporters, attracted to games during the World Cup, will come back for more afterwards and make his league richer and more popular.

“The white population has been armchair supporters,” he said. “They don’t come to the stadium. But during the Confederations Cup [in June], we had a big transformation.

“During the British Lions tour, 95 per cent of the spectators were white. In the Confederations Cup, we had 50 per cent white and 50 per cent black. We hope to improve on that. It is not enough for them to be watching at home, they must be at the stadium.”

Yet, just to underline the complexities, while Khosa frets about making sure that there are enough happy white faces at the World Cup, there are contrary concerns to make sure that the tournament is not de-Africanised.

Football is the game of the townships but how many Sowetans will make it to the tournament, given that tickets for a league game sell for 20 rands — and the cheapest seat next summer is seven times as much?

It takes an internet connection, some spare cash and the patience of Job to penetrate Fifa’s online ticket sales, so most of those who watch the Orlando Pirates or the Kaizer Chiefs, the nation’s two powerhouse clubs, could be regarded as barred from their own party.

Will the tournament feature the cacophony of vuvuzela horns that assault the senses even at a club match as desultory as the Pirates against Maritzburg United last week, when a few thousand rattled round the Orlando Stadium?

Fifa insists that its scheme of distributing 80,000 free tickets from sponsor allocations to locals through competitions, and a further 40,000 to construction workers (from a total of three million seats) will go a little way to answering that question.

But it remains to be seen how much a tournament in Africa actually feels like one. And how many of football’s new fans in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town will hang around afterwards.

Rooney workload a worry

I am not sure if I am going to be able to bear the agony of watching Wayne Rooney between now and the World Cup finals next summer.

To see him playing for Manchester United on Sunday in a role that required him both to create and finish his own chances (while chasing back) was to be filled with admiration but also fear for his ability to sustain such tireless excellence between now and the flight to South Africa.

It would be lovely to think of Sir Alex Ferguson and Fabio Capello sitting down to plot Rooney’s workload. Something on the lines of: “Alex, I know you are already five points behind in the title race and not exactly marching across Europe, but would you mind giving Wazza a fortnight off in January?”

No, me neither.

Early nod goes to Germany

One-nil to the Germans already in the World Cup stakes. Their federation trampled over Fifa rules, and the governing body’s allocation process, by booking the plush Velmore Hotel near Pretoria as a base next year in South Africa without waiting for the official nod.

England were among several countries who had been eyeing up the location in Centurion, which is a convenient drive from five of the tournament venues and has excellent transport links.

Fabio Capello, the England manager, is entitled to be miffed, but a complaint to Franz Beckenbauer is out of the question. The German legend has a vote on the 2018 World Cup bid, which may explain why the FA would prefer to maintain a diplomatic silence.