Colossal World Cup foul.

• Author: Zirin, Dave
• Position: Edge of Sports

I have been to many a playing field in my day, and never have I seen a sports arena as breathtaking as Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, South Africa. After getting a private tour of the $457 million marvel, designed for the World Cup, I left utterly stunned, for both better and worse.

Named after the late leader of the South African Communist Party, the stadium is a stylistic masterpiece. The eggshell white facility is visible for miles, rising from the Earth in milky waves, contrasting sharply with the dusty, urban environs that surround it. The open roof has a graceful, slender arc connecting one side of the stadium to the other. The arc itself is a wonder: starting as one clean curve, and then splitting into two separate stretches of white. This is an homage to the post-apartheid South African flag, with the stripes meant to symbolize, as the government website states, "the convergence of diverse elements within South African society, taking the road ahead in unity." Well-heeled adrenalin junkies can even go to the top of the arc and bungee-swing across the pitch.

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On one side of the stadium behind the goal is a completely open vista in the shape of a mammoth square called "the window unto Durban," and sure enough, the Durban skyline backdrops the stadium through this "window." But the true engineering achievement of the Moses Mabhida stadium is the bleachers section. It angles up with such subtlety that the effect is of a saucer instead of a bowl. Every one of the 74,000 seats has a picture perfect sightline on the action, whether you are in the nosebleeds or the corporate boxes. The seats themselves are painted in rich colors: The first level is royal blue to represent the ocean, the middle ones are green to signify the land, and the top is brown, as a sportswriter said to me, "so it looks full on television."

The most striking color in the stadium is not in the bleachers, though. It's the grass. The grass is a green so bright it hurts the eyes, with every blade appearing as if it were painstakingly colored with a magic marker. This has been created with the aid of near-infinite gallons of water, which I saw constantly irrigating the field.

This is a country where staggering wealth and poverty already stand side by side. The World Cup, far from helping this situation, is just putting a...