Sport and Recreation Pleased with 2010 Progress | Western Cape Government

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Sport and Recreation Pleased with 2010 Progress

4 July 2006
In exactly 48 months from now, all soccer enthusiasts globally, will pay attention to South Africa - when the country hosts the FIFA World Cup spectacle.

Government, in particular Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA), is pleased with the progress on preparations thus far.

The Minister of Sport and Recreation, Rev. Dr. Makhenkesi Stofile confirmed during an interview with Umsebenzi that the Local Organising Committee (LOC) is underway with the preparations for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The Minister's optimism follows FIFA's approval and an announcement of the proposed host cities and stadiums early this year. In total there will be 10 stadiums used in the nine host cities. Four new stadiums will be built in Cape Town (Greenpoint Stadium), Port Elizabeth (Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium), Durban (King's Park Stadium) and Nelspruit (Mbombela Stadium) with the remaining six being upgraded - Rustenburg (Royal Bafokeng Stadium), Bloemfontein (Free State Stadium), Pretoria ( Loftus Versveld Stadium), Polokwane (Peter Mokaba Stadium) and Johannesburg (Soccer City and Ellis Park Stadiums).

"You can see that even though Germany 2006 has not yet begun, 2010 is already in full operation and as a matter of fact, we are ahead of the schedule", the Minister said. The early announcement is a positive move for the South African host cities as they can go to the 2006 FIFA World Cup and learn from their German counterparts.

The cities, with the support of the Department of Sport and Recreation on both national and provincial level, will now start dealing with the infrastructural challenges such as airport upgrades, building or upgrading stadiums, and improving transportation networks to handle the football fans that will flock into South Africa.

In his State of the Nation address, President Thabo Mbeki announced: "In return for the irreplaceable benefits of hosting a World Cup, we owe it to FIFA and the rest of the soccer world to prepare properly for 2010".

Equally the CEO of the South Africa Local Organising Committee, Mr Danny Jordaan, said: "The announcement of the host cities in South Africa is the first concrete step taken in the delivery of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The cities co-operation and enthusiasm is unparalleled and signals the determination of the host cities to be wonderful hosts and deliver world-class infrastructure with African sensation".

South Africans also positive about 2010

South Africans are also very confident that the 2010 FIFA World Cup will bring increased job opportunities and improved economic growth to the country. They also believe that it will consolidate South Africa's position in the international arena.
Dr Udesh Pillay, Executive Director of Urban, Rural and Economic Development RP (URED) at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) said these three outcomes were mentioned by almost 85% of respondents in a recent national attitude survey.

However, respondents were almost equally divided whether these expected benefits would be of a "lasting" or "short term" nature. Some 47% believed the benefits of hosting the event would be long term, while 44% said the benefits would be short term.

"The survey probed the expectations of respondents for the country as a whole, the city or area in which they lived, their neighbourhood and, finally, for them personally. While respondents consistently opted for job creation and work opportunities as their predicted primary benefit of hosting the 2010 World Cup, they did so at different rates across these domains," stated Dr Pillay.

Job creation was an expected benefit at the national level for 34% of respondents, at the city level for 28% of them, and at the neighborhood level only for 15%. But 33% of the respondents expected to gain personally from the World Cup. "Interestingly, this figure was matched by an equal number of respondents who said they did not expect to receive any personal job creation benefits. Only a quarter of Black African respondents said they did not expect personal benefits, rising to 69% for white respondents. White and Indian/Asian respondents also tended to point to the short-term benefits of the event, while Black African respondents believed the event would bring more long-term benefits."

Extract taken from Umsebenzi: May 2006

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