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PREPARING SOUTH AFRICA FOR THE WORLD |
FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke who has just completed an inspection tour of the country's 2010 stadiums with local and foreign journalists, said that on a scale from one to 10, South Africa's readiness was at an eight, 'but we will be at 10 on June 11'. This assessment is a marked improvement from a year ago when Valcke warned that a great deal of work still needs to be done. He spoke to Project 2010 about South Africa's preparations...  South Africa appears to be well on track with its preparations, but with 100-days remaining until the World Cup gets underway, what are your biggest concerns? Yes, it is true that the preparations are on track, but there will always be challenges. In this case there are ticketing and transportation issues that still need to be resolved and other issues like the state of the pitches. But this is nothing out of the ordinary and nothing that we can't manage on time. There has been a great deal of coverage over the past few days about the negative coverage - particularly in the foreign media - about South Africa's preparations. Is this part-and-parcel of an event of this magnitude? Did you experience similar problems in Germany in 2006 and Japan/South Korea in 2002? Yes, this situation is normal. In Germany, the media was very negative. They questioned why Budweiser was the official beer when there were many very good German beers. In a way we are not surprised. It is normal that concerns are raised and we have to deal with that. So, is there nothing we can do to counter misconceptions about South Africa? No, we just have to keep doing what we are doing and we must be judged on the tournament. more interviews...
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