South African leaders on Monday urged the nation to build on its success as World Cup host to tackle pressing social challenges in a country with a gaping divide between rich and poor.

"The challenge, now, is to ensure that the infrastructure that has been developed, particularly the transport infrastructure, benefits all South Africans, especially the poor," Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu said the morning after Spain clinched the final.

"We must roll up our sleeves and build homes and classrooms and clinics like never before. We have proved to ourselves we can do anything we set our minds to," he added.

President Jacob Zuma said the event was "the beginning of a better future for South Africa and Africa".

"South Africa has gained a lot from this World Cup," he said in an upbeat report card broadcast live on national television.

"We have gained considerable project management expertise. This ability will enable us to deal with the ongoing priorities of creating jobs, improving education and providing health services."

South Africa's four-week football party showed the world the nation's best face, crowned by Nelson Mandela's appearance ahead of Spain's 1-0 victory over the Netherlands with 700 million people watching world-wide.

But amid broad praise, the focus turned on Monday to harnessing the unity and success to tackle the challenges still facing South Africa 20 years after Mandela walked free from apartheid prison.

South Africa has the world's biggest divide between rich and poor, with about 40 per cent of the population living in poverty and in desperate competition for scarce jobs.

Tensions in the poorest communities prompted 120 immigrants around Cape Town to seek refuge in police stations on Monday after fleeing their homes at the weekend, which saw sporadic attacks on foreign-owned shops.

Seven people were arrested, and Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu warned of "harsh" action to stamp out anti-foreigner threats.

"Opportunistic criminals must know that we will deal with them harshly, there is no way we will allow them to spread fear and crime, we are working very hard to find them and prosecute them," Sisulu said.

Eager to prevent the incident from tarnishing the country's World Cup reputation, she flew to Cape Town with the police minister on Monday for a briefing from local officials.

Zuma sought to downplay fears of a return to the xenophobic attacks that left 62 people dead across South Africa in May 2008.

The president has repeatedly said he wants to harness the spirit of unity created by the World Cup, saying it had delivered "priceless" social benefits for bringing South Africans of all races into the stands.

Top organiser Danny Jordaan, also a veteran of the struggle against the white-minority regime, compared hosting the World Cup to important moments in South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle.

"The day that Nelson Mandela walked out of prison was a special moment. The right to vote was a special moment," he said.

"On the 11th of June it was just an incredible moment. The dream has come true."

South Africa has delighted in proving wrong sceptics' fears that its rampant crime and rudimentary public transport made it an inappropriate venue for the world's most widely watched sporting event.

The deployment of more than 40,000 police helped prevent any killings of football fans while an overhaul of public transport saw many South Africans leave their cars at home for the first time.

FIFA says overall attendance at all matches topped three million, only the third tournament to do so, and estimated the television audience topped 700 million with live broadcasts in 215 countries and territories.

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