South Africa’s 2010 bid committee will have 30 minutes on Friday to give the executive of the Federation of International Football Associations (Fifa) a final arm twist to award South Africa the prestigious event.
The 24-member Fifa executive will decide on Saturday morning who will host the 2010 Soccer World Cup, by way of a ballot starting at 9am.
The result will be presented at a press conference at Fifa’s Zurich, Switzerland, head office at noon.
Sixteen South Africans will be ushered into a briefing room before the notoriously hard-nosed executive, chaired by Switzerland’s Sepp Blatter, at 5pm.
South African president Thabo Mbeki, former president Nelson Mandela, bid committee chairperson Irvin Khoza as well as bid chief executive Danny Jordaan will address their audience after a short visual presentation.
Three time African footballer of the year Abedi Pele, of Ghana, will also argue South Africa’s case and media reports would have it that glamorous former newsreader and True Love editor turned tourism promoter Khanyi Dhlomo or Hollywood actress Charlize Theron will also have a go at the all-male selectors.
Afterwards, there will be ten minutes of question time before the South Africans have to make way for the Libyans to argue their case.
Morocco and Tunisia will punt their positions before the South Africans, and Egypt after the Libyans.
After an afternoon of listening to high-pressure marketing bids, the Fifa executive will retire for dinner.
Meanwhile, SABC radio news reports that all the main players in the South African squad have arrived in Zurich.
The only members of the delegation yet to arrive are the big guns — Mbeki, Mandela and former president F W de Klerk, who will all make the trip on Thursday night.
Jordaan and Khoza were reportedly doing some ”frantic” last minute lobbying on Thursday. They were scheduled to lead a final rehearsal from noon to 2pm.
Observers say South Africa and Morocco are the front runners, while a Fifa inspection team rated Tunisia and Libya as not ready to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
Fifa said South Africa, in its second attempt, was ready to host an excellent World Cup, with Tunisia and Egypt only being ready to host a good tournament.
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel will be acting president while Mbeki is away, with Deputy President Jacob Zuma attending the Southern African Development Community’s Extraordinary Summit on Agriculture and Food Security in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Friday and Saturday.
The 2010 event will be the first ever held in Africa under a new Fifa rotation system.
Africa can in future expect to host the lucrative event every 20 to 25 years.
The 1998 event — held in France — generated R1,5-billion from 2,5-million tickets sold for 64 matches at an average ticket price of R600.
The ticket pricing for the 2002 event in Japan and South Korea started at $60 for first round matches increasing to $750 for the final match.
The South Africa 2010 bid committee expects 2,78-million tickets will be sold, raising R2,3-billion.
Although it has not been confirmed, a report by the bid committee suggests the average ticket price in 2010 would be R826.
About three million spectators would be expected to flock to South Africa for the event and spend more than R12-billion during the two months of the tournament. It was projected that staging the World Cup would boost the economy by R30-billion and create thousands of temporary and permanent jobs.
Also on Friday, preparations were underway in several major centres for parties on Saturday, where the announcement of the winner would be carried live on big screen television. – Sapa