Fifa on 2010 inspection tour
Themba Gadebe
9 October 2007
A Fifa delegation, along with the 2010 Local Organising Committee (LOC), kicked off a three-day inspection tour of South Africa's World Cup soccer stadiums at Soccer City in Johannesburg on Monday.
The inspection tour, which will take in four of the country's nine host cities, moves to Cape Town and Port Elizabeth on Tuesday before ending in Durban on Wednesday.
While in Durban, the inspection team will also visit the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre, the venue for the World Cup Preliminary Draw, which will take place on 25 November, marking the global kick-off of the journey to the 2010 Fifa World Cup.
According to the LOC, inspection visits are standard procedures in the build-up to any Fifa competition, not only to assess progress but also to strengthen relations among local authorities, host cities and stadium construction teams.
The delegation consists of experts in competitions, marketing, information
technology, media, accommodation, security, stadium construction and transportation from both Fifa and the LOC.
Fifa General Secretary Jerome Valcke said the delegation was looking forward to its visit, adding that the team's previous inspection was "very constructive and fruitful."
Valcke said there was a need to be realistic that there was still a lot of work to be done between now and 2010.
"But I want to stress that Fifa continues to have unflinching confidence in South Africa, and together we shall undertake to make this first African Fifa World Cup the tremendous success we know it will be."
The outcome of the inspection will be presented at the LOC's next board meeting on 16 October.
"The inspection tour is an important component of the state of readiness programme," said LOC chief executive officer Danny Jordaan. "We are sure the inspection team will find a lot of progress has been made since the last tour a year ago, particularly in the areas of
stadium construction.
"They will see the high quality of programmes the host cities have embarked on in transport and airport expansion. They will also see that a lot of hard work has gone into the preparations for the Preliminary Draw."
South Africa is building new stadiums from scratch in Cape Town (Greenpoint Stadium), Durban (Moses Mabhida Stadium), Port Elizabeth (Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium) and Nelspruit (Mataffin Stadium).
Of these, Durban's is set to be the biggest, with a capacity for seating 85 000 soccer fans. Cape Town's venue will seat 70 000 and have a retractable roof, the stadium in Port Elizabeth seat 48 000, while the Nelspruit venue will seat 46 000.
The other six stadiums - in Rustenburg (Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace), Bloemfontein (Free State Stadium), Pretoria (Loftus Versfeld Stadium) Polokwane (Peter Mokaba Stadium) and Johannesburg (Soccer City and Ellis Park) - are being substantially upgraded for 2010.
Source: BuaNews
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