As Favorites Fall, Bookies Fatten Up From London to Vegas

JOHANNESBURG—Everyone in England reacted with horror on Sunday after a missed call robbed Frank Lampard of a goal against Germany. Everyone, that is, except the bookies.

English bookmakers were on the hook for more than $100 million had England gone on to win the World Cup. That would have been the biggest payout ever in the history of British bookmaking, according to London bookmaker William Hill PLC.

Sports gamblers are wagering more money than ever on this World Cup, taking advantage of more in-game and remote betting options, and more widespread TV and Internet access.

Even before the tournament reaches the quarterfinals, many Las Vegas, U.K. and South African sports books have seen as much action as they did through the entire 2006 World Cup. Many anticipate at least a doubling of the total handle from that tournament, although the event still pales in comparison with bigger U.S. sports events like the Super Bowl. (The biggest World Cup match-ups draw about as much action in the U.S. as low-tier NFL games, American sports-book directors say.)

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By DAVID GAUTHIER-VILLARS and WILL CONNORS

Guinea is poised to become Africa’s next nation to reintroduce democracy after a long period of military rule, embarking on a transition that has proved halting and problematic for many African countries.

The National Independent Electoral Commission Monday began counting about four million votes cast over the weekend in what international observers described as the first free elections held in the West African country after more than half a century of authoritarian rule.

The vote, said the U.S. Embassy in Guinea in a statement, went “extraordinarily well.” African Union President Jean Ping welcomed the “neutrality” and “republican discipline” displayed by Guinea’s army forces.

Since its 1958 independence from France, Guinea has been ruled mostly by dictators and leaders of military coups. Some are rejoicing that the cycle may be coming to an end.

“For many years, free elections were a dream,” said Abdoulaye Baillo Diallo, an aide to one of the 24 candidates, all civilians, running for president. “Now it has become a reality.”

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By WILL CONNORS And CHRISTINA PASSARIELLO

SOWETO, South Africa—At this year’s World Cup in South Africa, which kicked off Friday, soccer’s governing body FIFA is trying to squelch guerilla-marketing tactics by those who haven’t paid for official sponsorships. It created new “exclusion zones” that restrict companies from advertising close to its venues and hired agents to help enforce the zones.

But big-name advertisers including Nike, Puma AG, PepsiCo Inc. and others are finding ways to go over and around them. In Johannesburg’s central business district, the skyline-dominating Life Center building has been draped with images of Nike-sponsored players and topped with its logo. Online, a soccer-themed Nike ad has been viewed more than 14 million times by fans world-wide.

Puma, PepsiCo and beer-maker SABMiller, have splashed Johannesburg with their own ads, billboards and elaborate TV and Web spots while being careful not to cross FIFA’s World Cup marketing boundaries. SABMiller has put up an online guide to taverns here and has created special cans that turn into a drinking cup.

Few have gone as far as Nike, which similarly parried with Adidas AG during the 2006 World Cup, to put its logo and brand before soccer fans here. In Soweto, a predominantly black township but home to an emerging middle class, a sleek new Nike-funded soccer training academy opened last week near two World Cup stadiums.

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The Wide Use of Foreign Managers on Local World Cup Teams Has Some Fans on Edge

The opening of the World Cup in South Africa on Friday will give the soccer-mad continent a chance to show off many of the world’s top players on the six African teams participating in the tournament.

The problem, as some African soccer fans see it, is that only one of those teams is led by an African coach.

This World Cup will be the first on African soil, and there are more African teams here than have been at any other World Cup. But that Algeria’s Rabah Saadane is the only African manager at the tournament has provoked not a little hand-wringing among Africa’s soccer-obsessed fans. They fear that foreign coaches, who are frequently brought in at the last minute and are unfamiliar with a team’s players, may actually hamper their countries’ chances at the World Cup. (No team has won a World Cup with a foreign coach.)

“A lot of people [in Africa] still have that mentality that the European knows more,” said Thomas Mlambo, a well-known TV presenter and analyst on the South Africa-based sports network SuperSport.

Host South Africa is coached by Brazilian Carlos Alberto Parreira, who won a World Cup coaching his country in 1994. Ivory Coast is using a Swedish coach, Sven-Göran Eriksson, who coached England in two World Cups but never got past the quarterfinals. Nigeria hired Swede Lars Lagerback, who coached his country in the 2006 Cup but failed as head coach to qualify Sweden this year.

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LAGOS, Nigeria—The restaurant manager, a tall, skinny Chinese woman named Queen Sun, hurried between tables while admonishing a group of slow-moving waiters.

We had just settled in at Ojez, a Chinese restaurant and bar well known for its live music, springrolls and stars from Nollywood.

Nollywood? Nollywood is the second-largest film industry in the world and only trails India’s Bollywood in terms of numbers of movies produced each year. And Ojez is one of their favorite meeting spots, where actors and directors mingle with producers to pitch themselves or their ideas. Deals are agreed upon informally, as with many things in Lagos, the high-energy entrepreneurial heart of Africa.

In 2006, Nollywood shot nearly 900 movies, almost all straight-to-video. The figure was nearly double Hollywood’s total for the same year. Currently, around 40 movies are shot every month in Lagos, not counting the dozens of television dramas that are also filmed here. The industry, which generates an estimated $250 million a year, is popular throughout Africa and immigrant enclaves in Europe and the U.S.

Upstairs at Ojez, musicians and a few aspiring Nollywood stars were hanging out. Jazz was playing on the speaker system in the main room. The walls were dark red and the lighting yellow. Patrons drank beer and ate fried rice.

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Nigeria has a storied legacy of fierce anti-government musicians, most famous among them the Afrobeat king Fela Kuti (currently enjoying a posthumous popular revival with the hit Broadway show “Fela!”). But since Fela’s death in 1997, there hasn’t been an obvious heir apparent to his musical prowess and political agitations, even among Fela’s two musician sons.

In the magnetic singer Nneka (Nneka Egbuna, 29), the opening act for Nas and Damian Marley’s Distant Relatives summer tour, Nigeria has found another performer capable of drawing global attention.

Nneka pulled herself up from a hardscrabble background in the oil-producing Niger Delta region of southern Nigeria and with no family support emigrated to Germany when she was 19 (her father is Nigerian and her mother is German). After years spent struggling to earn a living - including a stint cleaning bathrooms - Nneka found music.

While she has been recording for years in Germany, her first U.S. album, “Concrete Jungle,” was released just last year. Give it a listen and just try not to have it’s hard-driving first single, “Heartbeat,” get stuck in your head. Nneka also has a track called “Viva Africa,” on “Listen Up!” the official 2010 FIFA World Cup album.

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By WILL CONNORS and SARAH CHILDRESS

Foreign consumer-goods companies including Coca-Cola Co., Nestlé SA and Unilever PLC have been in Africa for decades without much competition from local players. Now, home-grown companies are expanding aggressively across the continent, eager to accommodate a growing middle-class among the billion-person population.

Among the most prominent of these consumer upstarts: African retailers such as Nakumatt Holdings Ltd. of Kenya, the top supermarket chain in East Africa, MTN Group Ltd., Africa’s largest cellphone provider, and South African restaurant chain Spur Corp. Nakumatt has expanded into three neighboring countries while 348-restaurant chain Spur has opened in seven other African countries.

Nakumatt chose to emulate an American icon: Kmart. On a visit to Florida in the 1980s, founder Atul Shah, a former mattress salesman, wandered into a Kmart and marveled at its cleanliness. He was so impressed at how the store sold food, household goods and furniture under one roof that he hung out there for hours a day for eight months. He became such a fixture that customers asked him for assistance. “Everybody was happy to be assisted by me,” said Mr. Shah.

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this story appeared on Page B1 of the Wall Street Journal

LAGOS, Nigeria—Despite some of the lowest Internet penetration rates in the world, Africa has enticed Google Inc.

Lured by the continent’s growth potential, Google aims to convince entrepreneurs, students and aid workers to make use of its search, mapping and mobile-phone technologies. But Africa—with roughly one billion inhabitants, over 50 countries and many regions that have limited access to electricity—presents huge obstacles.

“The Internet is not an integral part of everyday life for people in Africa,” said Joe Mucheru of Google’s Kenya office.

Africa lags far behind other big emerging markets in Internet use. Africa has 4% of global Internet users; China has 21%.

The continent also has some of the world’s highest costs for mobile-phone and Internet service. In Nigeria, bandwidth for Internet carriers costs $3,000 to $6,000 a month per megabyte, according to Nyimbi Odero of Google’s Nigeria office.

By comparison, the cost in the U.K. is about $20 a month per megabyte.

Despite the expense of Internet service, Google executives say Africa represents one of the fastest growth rates for Internet use in the world. Nigeria already has about 24 million users and South Africa and Kenya aren’t far behind, according to the World Bank and research sites like Internet World Stats.

“The goal is to get more people online,” said Estelle Akofio-Sowah, the Google country head in Ghana.

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By SPENCER SWARTZ And WILL CONNORS

Nigeria and China signed a tentative deal to build three oil refineries in the West African state at a cost of $23 billion, strengthening the countries’ energy partnership.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and one of its top oil producers, has been eager to boost gasoline supply and overhaul its rickety refineries. And by helping Nigeria build new refineries, China may be able to expand access to the country’s high-quality oil reserves.

“This is a deal we need for Nigeria to cut our reliance on imports,” said a senior Nigerian oil official. He added that the refinery deal puts China “in the running” for getting additional access to oil acreage. “This is business, but it builds goodwill.”

Under terms, Nigeria’s state oil company, along with a host of Chinese government-run entities, would build three refineries and a petrochemical complex, according to a statement from the state oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.

Officials said critical details remain unsettled, such as the pact’s financial terms and who would operate the plants.

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By BENOIT FAUCON, MARGARET COKER and WILL CONNORS

Dubai police have arrested a former Nigerian governor fleeing corruption charges, officials said Thursday, as authorities prepare to take the rare step of extraditing him to the U.K.

James Ibori, the former governor of oil-rich Delta State in southern Nigeria, was arrested in Dubai shortly after arriving there earlier this week, according to Dubai and London police as well as Nigerian antigraft officials.

Interpol—an international police organization—sent out an alert for Mr. Ibori’s arrest before he was picked up. An Interpol spokeswoman referred calls to the Dubai police.

“He was trying to pass through Dubai, but we stopped him,” a Dubai police official said. Dubai police officials confiscated Mr. Ibori’s passport and jailed him, the official said. Judicial authorities in Dubai are currently completing paperwork informing Interpol and the U.K. authorities about the arrest. “We are ready to extradite him,” the official said.

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