JOHANNESBURG – While the world’s soccer stars have been wowing fans on the field, off the pitch, politicians and former presidents have been doing their own fancy footwork – to try to win bids to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

A who’s who list of politicians, billionaires, sports icons and royalty from all over the world have been visiting South Africa to pitch their respective countries for hosting privileges (and, of course, take in some World Cup action).

Photo by Phil Cole/Getty Images

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Vice President Joe Biden attend the 2010 FIFA World Cup opening match between South Africa and Mexico on June 11 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Among the bidders is the U.S., which hosted the contest in 1994. Since applications began in January 2009, 11 bids representing 13 countries (Belgium/Netherlands and Spain/Portugal offered joint bids) have announced. Two of those countries, Mexico and Indonesia, have since pulled out.

Bidding for the World Cup is a long, cumbersome process and the competition is fierce. Though some South Africans question the value of hosting the event, the staggering economic benefit – “revenue like 12 Super Bowls” as one American newspaper put it – is enough to draw strong interest from almost any country.

A study commissioned by the USA Bid Committee found that the World Cup could potentially bring the 12 suggested American host cities anywhere from 0 to 0 million each and create a total of 65,000 to 100,000 new jobs.

Star spangled support
Since the U.S. bid was announced back in 2007, it has been strengthened by the support of prominent politicians such as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. President Barack Obama even invited FIFA president Sepp Blatter to the White House last July to lend his support for the U.S. bid, reportedly reminiscing about playing soccer as a boy in Indonesia.

Hollywood heavyweights Brad Pitt, Spike Lee, Morgan Freeman and sports greats Oscar De La Hoya, Mia Hamm and current U.S. team star Landon Donovan have also lent their names and time to the cause.

Vice President Joe Biden launched America’s high profile wooing in South Africa earlier this month when he met with Blatter while attending the opening ceremony and America’s first match, against England.

“About 25 million Americans are playing soccer. Eighty percent of those folks are young kids, which means it’s only going to grow in the United States,” said Biden on the official U.S. Bid Committee’s website. “I’m hopeful that we have a real clear shot then by the end of this year we’re going to be picked as the site for one of the next World Cups.”

And former President Bill Clinton made ripples both here and back in the U.S. when he joined the American team for a post victory locker room Budweiser. Much of his time here has been spent lobbying for the World Cup in his role as honorary chairman for the U.S. Bid Committee. He has even extended his visit to watch the U.S. play Ghana on Saturday.

Facebook

Former President Bill Clinton celebrates the U.S. World Cup victory over Algeria with American player Carlos Bocanegra. The photo originally appeared on Bocanegra’s Facebook page.

After the headaches involved in preparing South Africa and Brazil (the 2014 host) – two countries initially lacking the infrastructure required to host the World Cup – many believe FIFA is looking for a country that already has many of the stadiums and logistical foundations in place, a qualification that Clinton believes makes the U.S. a favorite.

“It’s good for us, actually because we won’t have to spend a fortune to get ready for it,” said Clinton at a press conference here earlier this week.

The U.S. bid has been buoyed by Major League Soccer’s growing popularity and a strong legacy from when it hosted the 1994 Cup, which drew over 3.5 million spectators and average match attendance of 68,991.

Strong competition from Europe
The U.S. bid faces most competition from Europe, with many insiders believing a European country will win the 2018 bid, leaving 2022 to the Americans. In particular, the English and Russian bids have come to the forefront, especially after Blatter allegedly said that joint bids would not be viewed as favorably as single nation ones.

The Russians took advantage of the 60 FIFA Congress in Johannesburg earlier this month to make a strong case for Russia’s first World Cup. Representing their delegation were a slew of well-known Russian soccer stars and billionaire Roman Abramovich, who owns one of England’s most prominent teams, Chelsea.

Meanwhile, the English have relied heavily on the charms of global soccer icon David Beckham, who has been here for most of the month promoting the English bid. He was recently joined by Princes William and Harry, who combined a charity-promoting trip to several African countries with a World Cup visit.

Though the royals have been met with great fanfare and delight by FIFA, the all-star cast has been forced to smooth over several scandals that have rocked the English Organizing Committee as of late. Nevertheless, many believe that with a strong soccer infrastructure in place already thanks to its lucrative Premier League, the English bid represents the strongest technical bid in its class.

By Ron Allen, NBC News Correspondent

BO, Sierra Leone – Ahmed Smart is a well-dressed man who stood out in the midday market crowd in downtown Bo, Sierra Leone’s second-largest city.

He walked up to me with a friendly, inquisitive face, dark glasses shielding his eyes from the intense sun, and asked that inevitable question I hear in places like this: “What are you doing here? What is your purpose?”

Photo by Amber Payne/NBC News

NBC New’s Ron Allen chats with Ahmed Smart in a marketplace in Bo, Sierra Leone.

Obviously, I stand out. I probably looked pretty uncomfortable sweating profusely standing there looking like a foreigner.

We were in Bo taking pictures of the market scene for a story about the U.S. Peace Corps returning to Sierra Leone after a 16-year absence during the country’s long, bloody civil war.

Thirty-nine volunteers were in training just down the road, learning how to teach secondary-school subjects like math and science. They were also grappling with learning the local language and with their new living arrangements with host families – a huge adjustment. Most have no electricity. They get water from a well. They walk up to 45 minutes each day back and forth to their training, from houses in the bush.

It’s a two-year commitment. “The toughest job you’ll ever love,” is the Peace Corps motto. The tough part is putting it mildly. However, the tremendous feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment from teaching or helping people in these poor distant communities in other ways, so many former volunteers say, is life-altering and almost impossible to put into words.

Photo by Ron Allen /NBC News

Trying to make a living in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Memory of an old teacher
All of that brings me back to Smart. When I told him about the story we were working on, a broad smile instantly spread across his face. He let out a long sigh, as his mind’s eye raced back to when he was a young boy. He paused to gather his thoughts. The moment was very emotional for reasons I would soon understand.

“They taught me,” he said. “Miss Watson. I remember her even now,” he said. “I wish to see her.”

Watson, a Peace Corps volunteer, was Smart’s sixth-grade teacher. “I wonder whatever happened to her,” he thought out loud. (Since we are still reporting from Sierra Leone, we haven’t had a chance to try to find out what did come of Watson back in the States.)

It was some 40 years ago, in the early 1960s, he said. Two American teachers, he couldn’t remember the other person’s name, spent a couple of years at his school in the eastern province of Kenema. Smart is now an accountant, a civil servant who works for the local government in Bo.

While we visited the Peace Corps training center, we ran into several former students of volunteers who years later are teaching the newest generation of volunteers. But running into Smart in the craziness that is downtown Bo in the middle of the day was a complete coincidence.

Coming back after 16-year hiatus
We are going to have more stories in the coming weeks about the American volunteers now finding their way here. We spent a couple days with them during what’s been an extraordinary adventure in this nation trying to pull itself up from the ashes of a devastating war. The government from President Ernest Bai Koroma on down pushed hard to encourage the Peace Corps to return, as a signal to the rest of the world that the country is peaceful and safe.

Photo by Ron Allen/ NBC News

Life is not easy in Sierra Leone. A child in a hospital pediatric clinic in Freetown.

There’s a rich tradition of service here dating back to 1962 shortly after President John F. Kennedy launched the Peace Corps with a challenge to a group of students at the University of Michigan. Nearly 4,000 volunteers have served here since. Even though no volunteers have been here for the last 16 years, that figure still makes Sierra Leone’s one of the largest Peace Corps programs in the world.

Back in downtown Bo, Smart was telling us how he hopes more young people here will go to school, learn trades and find jobs that will help this country develop.

The road where we were standing was loud and somewhat dangerous because of the sea of motorbikes whizzing by, usually with two or even three people perched on the seat. Young people, especially young men, love to use the bikes to dash through the terrible traffic here.

Smart said they’re the people who concern him most. “They’re the same men who were fighting in the war,” he explained. Now they’re idle and he feared that could lead to a return to violence.

As we were about to part, he remembered something else about his years in grade school and his American teacher Watson.

“I’m singing Lord, Lord, Lord truly been good to me…I’m singing Lord, Lord Lord… because you did what the world couldn’t do.” There were several verses.

“I would like to say a very big ‘thank you’ to her,” he said of Watson. The song, like so much else he learned from an American volunteer some 40 years ago, has never been forgotten.

By Arata Yamamoto, NBC News producer

TOKYO – While Japanese sports fans have been spending many sleepness nights following the World Cup excitement unfolding in South Africa, organizers of Japan’s national sport, sumo wrestling, have been scrambling to contain a gambling scandal that has threatened the cancellation of the Nagoya Grand Sumo Tournament in July.

Photo by Phillippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images

Kotomitsuki, above, is currently at the forefront of the latest scandal to hit the world of sumo wrestling in Japan.

The scandal first sparked up in May, when the weekly magazine Shukan Shincho reported allegations that Kotomitsuki – one of the country’s top wrestlers – was being blackmailed for a debt he had accumulated from gambling on professional baseball games.

Gambling is illegal in Japan, except for in the case of a few government-sanctioned activities such as the soccer lottery, horse racing and motorboat racing. Gambling on professional sports like baseball that require bookmakers, moreover, is often suspected of being tied to organized crime.

Kotomitsuki initially denied his involvement. In an ensuing internal probe by the Japan Sumo Association conducted between June 11 to June 14, however, 65 wresters and staff members admitted to some form of gambling, ranging from mahjong to card games. Twenty nine of them, including Kotomitsuki, ultimately admitted to betting on baseball games.

Sumo Association Chairman Musashigawa convened an emergency meeting on Monday between officials from the association. Musashigawa said the organization will continue to make plans for the upcoming Nagoya tournament, but will also launch a formal external investigation of the 65 in order to determine the exact nature of their involvement in illegal gambling.

“I never imagined so many wrestlers would be involved,” said Musashigawa, the former yokozuna grand champion, at the start of the Monday meeting. He apologized for the fact that his wrestlers had tarnished the image of the sport.

Assault, drugs mar sport’s reputation
The chairman said the association will decide whether or not to hold the Nagoya tournament after the results from the investigation come in.

Although Sumo wrestling remains a revered sport in Japan, its popularity has diminished in recent years not only because of the rise of sports like soccer and baseball, but also because of what has seemed like a never-ending series of scandals.

In 2007, a 17-year-old sumo apprentice died after three other wrestlers were instructed by their stable master to hit him with baseball bats. The stable master denied any wrongdoing and claimed that the apprentice had died of a heart attack. All four were eventually found guilty of manslaugher.

A year later, in 2008, several top wrestlers from Russia were expelled from the Japan Sumo Association for possession of marijuana, forcing the resignation of the then-Sumo Chairman Kitanoumi.

And this year, one of the most successful yozokuna champions, Mongolian wrestler Asashoryu, was forced to resign after he allegedly assaulted a man outside a nightclub in Tokyo.

The most recent gambling scandal has prompted one major sponsor to pull its prize money out of the Nagoya tournament. In addition, NHK– the public broadcaster that televises professional sumo matches – is considering whether it should continue with its broadcast next month, according to local media reports.

“In its long history and tradition, Sumo has never been exposed to such a crisis,” said Sports and Education Minister Tatsuo Kawabata said at the start of the Japan Sumo Association’s probe last week. “The sport is on the brink of a fresh start, but only if it handles the situation firmly.”