SA clears first major 2010 hurdle
Craig Urquhart
29 November 2007Mission accomplished. South Africa cleared its first major 2010 Fifa World Cup hurdle with flying colours.
Months of precision planning in Durban paid off handsomely when the 2010 preliminary draw was conducted with Swiss precision. Delegates were transported, registered, protected and wined and dined by the Local Organising Committee, city of Durban officials and an army of volunteers.
A heavy security blanket was wrapped around the port city all weekend. The only serious incident occurred in a small town outside Durban, where an Austrian tourist was robbed and shot dead. The foreign media scrambled to find a connection with Fifa's first official event in South Africa, but there wasn't one.
Nevertheless, Fifa President Sepp Blatter was forced to respond to the incident. He pointed out that these problems are not unique to South Africa. For example, a 16-year-old female was shot in Zurich on the same weekend.
"I deplore what happened, but this is something you cannot put in relation, or to put it to question the organisation of the World Cup in South Africa. This would not be correct," Blatter said.
The World Cup roadshow then moved to Johannesburg, where the Soccerex 2007 was staged. And, once again, the 2010 hosts didn’t disappoint. About 300 exhibitors and more than 5 000 delegates relished the world's biggest business of football conference and exhibition.
South Africa is now well on the road to staging the "world class World Cup" that Local Organising Committee CEO Danny Jordaan has been promising all along.
Urquhart is a former Fifa World Cup media officer and the current editor of Project 2010
