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PREPARING SOUTH AFRICA FOR THE WORLD |
FIFA's Secretary General is actively involved in assisting South Africa with its preparations for the 2010 World Cup. After conducting the draw for the Confederations Cup (with the help of eight Miss World finalists), he spoke to Project 2010……  So far, it seems that South Africa has produced the goods with regards to the two major FIFA events held in South Africa - the Preliminary draw last year and now the draw for the Confederations Cup - what were your impressions? The organisation of both these events has been quite perfect. There was very good work between FIFA and the LOC and Combined Artists and I have to congratulate them. But the 2010 Final Draw (in Cape Town in December 2009) is a very different story altogether. This is much bigger and much more complicated. It is more of a challenge for everyone involved. And you will see the television rating will be very high - the equivalent of a World Cup football match with 400 million people watching. So, yes, there will be more pressure then. FIFA has conceded that South Africa has been placed under significant pressure to complete it's various projects on time and there is now talk of giving future World Cup hosts much more time to prepare? Is this pressure a blessing in disguise - is it forcing South Africa to rise to the challenge? The issue is that when we gave the World Cup to this country, it took months to decide on the host cities and then they had to sign the host city's agreement and then there were the stadiums, so there were naturally delays. It is fair to give a country four years to prepare for the Confederations Cup and five years to prepare for the World Cup. Of course, some countries don't need it. Germany…it would take just 12 months working out the tickets and the commercial partners. In terms of the political situation in South Africa, there is a great deal of uncertainty ahead of next year's presidential elections. You and President Blatter recently met with ANC president Jacob Zuma - did you address any of FIFA's concerns with him? When we went to see Mr Zuma in September, we received a full commitment that whoever is in charge of the country (in 2010) will support all the commitments that have been made to FIFA. And I must point out that all the government guarantees we received back in 2003 - before we even awarded the rights to South Africa - were signed by Mr Zuma because President (Thabo) Mbeki was out of the country. My feeling is this tournament is something that is too important for such a young country for there to be problems. The World Cup can do so much for South Africa. My only concerns with the current election process is that the normal business will be affected because everyone is preparing for elections, but that is why it is important that the Local Organising Committee can work by itself. more interviews... |
