Johannesburg — EITHER Nawal El Moutawakel is on some strong medication or the air was dangerously thin when the Moroccan visited Nairobi, Kenya, the other day.

In case you are wondering just who in the blazes Moutawakel is, well, she is the International Olympic Committee (IOC) official who put her foot in her mouth when she was asked if Africa was ready to host the Olympic Games. This misguided element told all who cared to listen that Africa was unlikely to host the Olympic Games for at least 20 years, despite the success of the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

"I know SA did a wonderful job with the Fifa World Cup, right from the airport, going into the Johannesburg city and suburbs on wide, smooth roads, to world-class hotels and wonderful facilities in all the cities," the resident bright spark told a spellbound gallery.

"But the Soccer World Cup is one sport in nine cities, with 64 matches played by 32 countries in one month. (The) Olympics is 26 sports in one city played by 10 500 athletes in three weeks and watched by billions around the world."

Honestly, folks, these have got to be the rants of someone who is either very light-headed or the oxygen available in Kenya last week was considerably less than normal. How else are we supposed to make sense of this gibberish?

Moutawakel would have the world believe that it is much more complicated to host the Olympics than the Soccer World Cup. She maintains that hosting matches almost every day in several cities around the country was a piece of cake compared to staying in one city for three weeks.

I don't know if we should laugh or cry that this continent has got someone like this representing it at an organisation as big as the IOC.

How in the blazes does someone trivialise the organisation of a mammoth event like the World Cup?

Here I was thinking that successfully hosting the World Cup was a great thing for the whole continent. The old girl, on the other hand, would have us believe it was really no big deal.

This woman conveniently forgets that staying in one city for the Olympics means the airports will not constantly be stretched to the limit for a month while trying to deal with teams, officials, fans, media and normal domestic travellers.

Some of these sports she is yawning about are actually played by very few countries around the world and do not require major logistical planning. To think there were days when the World Cup was played in three cities all on the same day. Airports, hotels, roads, and other infrastructure came under strain from all the travelling fans.

Surely fans of athletes competing in the Olympic Games do not travel in great numbers, like they did during the World Cup?

If anything, it is the locals who dominate the stands during the Olympics and much of the infrastructure that had to be built for the World Cup is not required for the Olympics.

So what the hell is this Moroccan going on about? Is it just me or do I detect a hint of jealousy here? Don't forget that Morocco bid against SA for the 2006 and 2010 World Cups.

SA managed to present better bids than the north Africans did on both occasions.

That cannot have gone down very well, given the fact that the Moroccans thought they were old hands at the whole thing after bidding unsuccessfully for the 1994 and 1998 tournaments.

So I suppose it would annoy the living hell out of them if SA managed to become the first African country to host the Olympics after pipping them to the World Cup. Is that what Moutawakel was trying to say?

Ntloko is sports editor.