If you’ve watched the terrific Confederations Cup — and especially its thrilling USA:Brazil ending! — then you can’t have helped hearing the South African fans making noise with their traditional instruments of football mayhem, the vuvuzela.

They look like this:

The Vuvuzela is a noise maker found at South African soccer matches

A half-dozen fans having one of these, or even a lot of fans who blow on them to celebrate a goal or terrific defensively play is one thing, but as those of us that watched the FIFA Confederations Cup learned, the practice in South Africa seems to be to keep a continuous drone of vuvuzela going throughout the match.

And we’re not talking about twenty or thirty people in the stadium, we’re talking about hundreds, if not thousands, of locals keeping a deafening racket during the entire match.

Players have complained, coaches have complained, broadcast personnel have complained, but FIFA, so far, has said that it would allow vuvuzela’s in the World Cup 2010 stadiums and would allow South Africans to use them to mark their enjoyment and appreciation of the game.

I wish they wouldn’t. I found the constant clamor to be most distracting and annoying, and it even got in the way of being able to hear the crowd reaction to terrific plays or bad calls by referees both.

Maybe it’s time for the South African fans to learn some chants?

Posted under 2010 World Cup