In 2000 the decision to award the 2006 World Cup to Germany was a bitter pill for South Africans to swallow. But they can rest assured that next year it will be their turn to hear the name ‘South Africa” pulled out of an envelope by Sepp Blatter, president of world football’s governing body, Fifa.
The reason for such optimism is the amount of work already done by the 2010 bid company. The organisers are now at a crucial phase — that of preparing to present the all-important ‘bid book” on September 30 to Fifa’s voting members. The bid book has 18 chapters and 1 000 pages.
Ian Riley, the bid company’s events and logistics manager, is in charge of ensuring that everything in the book is in order.
Riley says 64 bid books will have to be made available to Fifa. He singled out the government chapter, which contains information on what the South African state guarantees to do to back the event, as the most important. It deals with things such as visas, tax, immigration, safety and security, infrastructure, insurance of broadcasting satellites and commercialisation. Will a World Cup in South Africa make Fifa enough money to run its programmes for the next four years?
Riley said: ‘Last time our bid book was seen as one of the best, but we have not just gone back to that one — we have improved it.”He says the bid book ‘is the sales pitch for the 2010 World Cup”.
Compiling the book was hard work but because of his passion he did not feel the work that much. ‘It is history in the making and my part is to see it unfold,” says Riley.
The bid book will be handed to the government on September 25 and then to Fifa in Zurich.
Countdown: The important dates
September 30 2003
The contenders are expected to present their bid books to world governing body Fifa’s general secretariat. One of the important aspects of Germany’s successful bid for 2006 was its document — presented by the always impressive ‘Kaiser”, Franz Beckenbauer. South African bid boss Danny Jordaan has experience on that and has already enlisted the help of the Germans, as have the Libyans.
October 2003 to January 2004
Fifa’s inspection team visits all the contenders. Exact dates of each visit have not yet been announced.
January 31 2004
An ad-hoc Fifa committee starts evaluating all the bids after the inspection visits.
March 31 2004
The evaluation process is completed and a report drafted by the ad-hoc committee for presentation to Fifa’s executive committee.
May 22 2004
The day of reckoning, when Fifa annouces its decision of the host country for the 2010 World Cup. Bidding countries will have their say. Again it is expected that Europe will be a key decider especially if they decide to vote as a bloc. South Africa will hope there is no Charles Dempsey (the Oceania representative largely blamed for the failure of the 2006 bid) this time around.