Well, once you've done one World Cup in HD, there's no going back. In any case, if you're a host nation from now on, one of Fifa's requirements is that your broadcasts are in high-definition.
It seems that South Africa is still largely analogue, but Sentech, a South African broadband network, is planning to roll out digital terrestrial TV.
To me, this implies that SA's terrestrial digital service will be able to cope with the bandwidth requirements of HD, but in any case, they'll need to get some serious gear in place in order to capture, edit and transmit World Cup pictures around the globe.
At least by 2010 equipment should be more plentiful and a little cheaper, and there'll be more engineers trained in the art of HD broadcasting.
One thing's for sure, the World Cup will never be standard def again.
Unless you have to watch it on ITV!!
ITV do HD too... :o