Stadiums boost for World Cup bid
28 August 2003
South Africa's 2010 World Cup bid company plans to spend about R1.8-billion to build four new world-class football stadiums and upgrade nine others in order to boost the country's chances of hosting the premier global soccer spectacular.
The stadiums will be built and renovated to meet the high standards set by soccer's governing body, the Federation of International Football Associations (Fifa), for countries bidding to host soccer's quadrennial spectacle.
According to The Citizen newspaper, the new stadiums are planned for Rainbow Junction in Soshanguve outside Pretoria, Kimberley in the Northern Cape, Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape, and Nelspruit in Mpumalanga.
Those to be upgraded are the FNB Stadium near Soweto, Ellis Park in Johannesburg, Loftus in Pretoria, Absa Stadium in Durban, the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace near Rustenburg, Newlands in Cape Town, Bloemfontein's Free State Stadium, Polokwane's Peter Mokaba Stadium, and
the Oppenheimer Stadium in Orkney in North West.
The SA 2010 Bid Company plans to choose a city to host a World Cup pool in each of the country's nine provinces. However, some provinces, such as Mpumalanga, still have no world-class stadiums.
The bid company's logistics and events manager, Ian Riley, told The Citizen that the money for this work would come from the national and provincial governments, through sponsorhips and other fundraising drives.
According to Riley, plans have already been drawn up for the work to start. The FNB stadium, for example - which would host the quarter-finals, the semi-finals and the final - will be upgraded from a seating capacity of 80 000 to 110 000.
"There are many other improvements we will make, but we are excited that we will see four new soccer stadiums being built in areas where they are needed," Riley told The Citizen.
"We are determined to have 13 world-class venues for the tournament. We are confident that
we will succeed if we win the bid to host the 2010 spectacle."
The SA 2010 World Cup Bid Company, led by chief executive Danny Jordaan and chairman Irvin Khoza, is presently printing the country's Bid Book. Riley told The Citizen: "The deadline for bidding countries to submit their bid book is September 30. Countries who fail to produce a Bid Book will be eliminated from the bidding."
Fifa decided last September that the 2010 event would be held in an African country for the first time since the inception of the finals in 1958. Fifa has also said it would consider joint bids by more than one country. Six countries are in the running. Challenging South Africa are Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Nigeria.
The announcement of the winning city is expected to be made in May 2004, after inspection visits and assessments of the bidding countries.
SouthAfrica.info reporter
| 
