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WC'2010
In 2010 the Soccer World Cup final tournament will be held
in Africa for the first time ever. South Africa will be the host
nation.
Map and graphic: Mary Alexander.
Cape
Town | Port Elizabeth | Pretoria | Nelspruit | Polokwane | Johannesburg | Rustenburg | Bloemfontein | Durban
2010 Fifa World Cup South Africa
South Africa regularly hosts major international sporting events, and
since 1994 has successfully managed some of the biggest - including the
1995 Rugby World Cup, the 2003 Cricket World Cup, the Women's World Cup
of Golf in 2005 and 2006 and, in January 2006, the only street race in
the inaugural A1 GP World Cup of Motorsport.
But the Football World Cup, the world's biggest sporting event after the
Olympic games - in terms of television audience, bigger than the Olympics
- is in a class of its own.
Fifa president Sepp Blatter at the 15 May 2004
announcement in Switzerland that South Africa had been chosen to
host the 2010 World Cup. Image: South Africa 2010
Local Organising Committee
For four weeks in 2010, South Africa will be the centre
of the world. The 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan was the most extensively
covered and viewed event in television history. Germany 2006, and South
Africa 2010, promise to draw even bigger audiences.
The eyes of billions of television viewers, an estimated three million
international visitors and the cream of the world's sporting media will
be focused on the southern tip of Africa.
We don't aim to disappoint.
Infrastructure upgrades
In choosing South Africa to bring the World Cup to Africa for the first
time, Fifa was not only looking at what the country already offers - world-class
transport, telecommunications, tourism and sporting infrastructure, and
a people renowned for their hospitality and passion for the beautiful
game. They were looking ahead.
In 2010, football fans will enjoy the benefits of a host of multibillion-rand
infrastructure projects recently announced by the government.
Between now and 2010, South Africa will spend in the region of R5-billion
on building and renovating 10 World Cup stadiums, R5.2-billion on upgrades
to the country's airports, and R3.5-billion on improvements to the country's
road and rail network.
The country will also be working to tight deadlines to ensure that the
Gautrain, a high-speed rail link between Johannesburg, Pretoria and Johannesburg
International Airport, is up and running in time.
Ten stadiums
Five of South Africa's football stadiums will undergo major renovations
for 2010: Soccer City and Ellis Park in Johannesburg, Loftus Versfeld
in Pretoria, the Royal Bafokeng stadium in Rustenburg in North West province,
and Vodacom Park in Bloemfontein in the Free State.
Former South African President and Nobel Peace
Prize laureate Nelson Mandela reacts to the 2004 announcement that
his country is to host the 2010 World Cup. Image:
South Africa 2010 Local Organising Committee
New stadiums will be built at Mbombela in Mpumalanga and
in the Nelson Mandela Metro (encompassing Port Elizabeth) in the Eastern
Cape.
Peter Mokaba stadium in Polokwane in Limpopo will be rebuilt, as will
Kings Park stadium in Durban and Cape Town's Green Point stadium. Kings
Park and Green Point stadium will become completely new multi-sport facilities,
Green Point complete with a retractable dome to protect fans and players
from the Cape's unpredictable winter weather.
Boost for the economy
According to consulting firm Grant Thornton, the World Cup will pump around
R21.3-billion into South Africa's economy, generating an estimated R12.7-billion
in direct spending and creating an estimated 159 000 new jobs.
The country's tourism industry will benefit from the estimated three million
visitors expected for the tournament, while construction and engineering
companies will look to a slice of the billions to be spent on infrastructure
in the lead-up to the event.
However, the indirect spin-offs of an improved image abroad could have
an even greater impact on the economy.
"There will be a big direct injection for the economy", Standard
Bank economist Goolam Ballim said after Fifa announced the 2010 host.
"But the indirect impact may be more meaningful for a sustainable
economic lift in subsequent years ... it will help change the perceptions
that a large number of foreign investors hold of Africa and South Africa."
In his 2006 State of the Nation address, President Thabo Mbeki said the
World Cup would make a huge contribution, not only to South Africa's socio-economic
growth, but to the development of the continent as a whole.
"In return for these irreplaceable benefits, we owe it to Fifa and
the rest of the soccer world to prepare properly for 2010," Mbeki
said, challenging South Africans to work together to ensure that the country
hosts "the best Soccer World Cup ever".
President Thabo Mbeki has assured the world that the next Soccer World
Cup to be staged in South Africa will be out of the ordinary.
FIFA President Joseph Sepp Blatter, U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan, and President of the Republic of South Africa Thabo
Mbeki, right to left, pose. Photo: AP
Mbeki was speaking at the handing-over ceremony in Berlin.
He says South Africa will stun the world with its friendliness and unique
culture when it presents the tournament.
'Sometime ago, South Africa said we would rid the world of apartheid,
and there were some people who didn't believe us, in fact it was going
to be very difficult. The same skeptics who are doubtful now about the
Soccer World Cup 2010 in South Africa, I am saying on behalf of the African
continent, we said to the world that we would rid our continent of apartheid
and we kept that promise,' said Mbeki reiterating SA's determination to
present a successful Soccer World Cup in 2010.
Mbeki added that it is very important, particularly to us as 'South Africans
as we are battling everyday to reunite what was divided, to assert a common
humanity for people who were described as different - to say we are all
humans together and that together we must enjoy dignity, freedom and justice
and our children must grow up in an environment that nurtures their talents,
that infuses their spirits with resilience'.
Meanwhile, Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president, has reiterated the world
soccer governing body's sentiments of trust in the capability of South
Africa to host the 2010 event. Blatter says they will implement lessons
learnt from the German World Cup. Blatter says the African Union has given
its word that it would also co-operate to make sure that the 2010 World
Cup is for all Africans.
WORLD CUP HISTORY
No other sporting event captures the world's imagination like the FIFA
World Cup™. Ever since the first tentative competition in Uruguay
in 1930, FIFA's flagship has constantly grown in popularity and prestige.
Jules Rimet
A group of visionary French football administrators, led
in the 1920s by the innovative Jules Rimet, are credited with the original
idea of bringing the world's strongest national football teams together
to compete for the title of World Champions. The original gold trophy
bore Jules Rimet's name and was contested three times in the 1930s, before
the Second World War put a 12-year stop to the competition.
When it resumed, the FIFA World Cup™ rapidly advanced to its undisputed
status as the greatest single sporting event of the modern world. Held
since 1958 alternately in Europe and the Americas, the World Cup broke
new ground with the Executive Committee's decision in May 1996 to select
Korea and Japan as co-hosts for the 2002 edition.
Since 1930, the 16 tournaments have seen only seven different winners.
However, the FIFA World Cup™ has also been punctuated by dramatic
upsets that have helped create footballing history - the United States
defeating England in 1950, North Korea's defeat of Italy in 1966, Cameroon's
emergence in the 1980s and their opening match defeat of the Argentinean
cup-holders in 1990....
Today, the FIFA World Cup™ holds the entire global public under its
spell. An accumulated audience of over 37 billion people watched the France
98 tournament, including approximately 1.3 billion for the final alone,
while over 2.7 million people flocked to watch the 64 matches in the French
stadia.
After all these years and so many changes, however, the main focus of
the FIFA World Cup™ remains the same - the glistening golden trophy,
which is the embodiment of every footballer's ambition.
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