Inmates in one of South Africa's maximum security prisons will get to watch the World Cup after big screen televisions were donated to a Johannesburg jail this week.
"If you offended the first time (it) doesn't mean that you are completely consigned to... being bad," said Magnus Mchunguzi, a managing director at Ericsson South Africa, a unit of Swedish firm Ericsson.
The company donated televisions, projectors and home theatre equipment to prison authorities at Leeuwkop Correctional Centre on Monday, so inmates will be able to watch the month-long tournament that starts on June 11.
"Sports helps to teach people to observe the rules of the game and in life there are rules and boundaries and norms so we are trying to say to (the prisoners) you use what you learn in sports to transfer to your real life," said Hlengiwe Mkhize, South Africa's deputy minister of correctional services.
The Department of Correctional Services plans to hold mini soccer tournaments at all of its prisons, with prisons adopting one of the 32 countries participating in the World Cup.
For the inmates, it means getting to watch their home team as soccer fever takes over South Africa.
One of those watching will be 21 year-old Tebogo Moloi, who is serving a 10-year sentence for robbery.
Now the leading player in the prison's youth team, Moloi is looking forward to watching his team go all the way.
"I think it is obvious that South Africa is going to win the World Cup," he said.
