South African President Thabo Mbeki will raise the issue of France’s overt support for Morocco’s 2010 soccer World Cup bid during a state visit to France next month, a senior government official said on Tuesday.
Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad told reporters in the capital that Mbeki would raise the issue following remarks by French President Jacques Chirac that his country would support the Moroccan bid.
”I’m not saying this will be part of the agenda of the visit, but generally we would have to talk to the French like we are talking to every country that has a vote in the World Cup,” Pahad said.
South African newspapers reacted sharply on Tuesday to the news, which had gone unnoticed until now, following Chirac’s remarks in Rabat on October 11 during a state visit to Morocco.
”I shall do what I can to ensure that France supports Morocco’s bid for the World Cup,” he told a press conference.
”French 2010 bombshell” said the Sowetan newspaper, which has a mainly black readership and the largest soccer following in the country, while The Citizen headline read ”French shift goalposts for SA soccer bid.”
Said Pahad: ”We hope the (French support) is not cast in stone. That they support Morocco and that’s that.”
South Africa’s 2010 Bid Committee has asked Mbeki to intervene by protesting to Chirac, the Sowetan reported.
Presidential spokesperson Bheki Khumalo told the paper that ”the bid committee was perfectly entitled to seek an audience with the president on this matter.”
Khumalo said the South African government remained ”solidly behind the bid”.
An international inspection team is due in South Africa later in the week to look at the country’s bid preparations. – Sapa-AFP