"It's a local sound and I don't know how it is possible to stop it," [Blatter] said on Wednesday. "I always said that when we go to South Africa, it is Africa. It's not western Europe. "It's noisy, it's energy, rhythm, music, dance, drums. This is Africa. We have to adapt a little.

However, I watched some minutes of a couple of the present Confed Cup matches on TV, and I must say that at least across TV, 60,000 blown at the same time is a different quality altogether, even compared to Spanish league matches (resp. Champions League home matches of Spanish teams) I saw.

You really hear nothing else as background noise. And it is very monotonous -- what really bothered me was not the noise itself, but that there is barely a difference in noise when there is a goal, at least it doesn't come across on TV. Hence, what it came closest to is a regional league match here in Europe, when two-three horns blown continuously are enough to drown out the cheers of all the fans.

(BTW, one of the commentators, commenting from the stadium, also complained of the sound as he heard it live.)

With all that said, it seems to me too that a ban would be nonsense; and, with the greater number of foreign fans, I suspect that the situation wouldn't be as bad in at least those World Cup matches not involving the host. Also, FIFA could ask sound engineers to tinker with filters.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}