South Africa’s 2010 bid committee will get their final 30 minutes at 5pm on Friday to convince international soccer bosses to give the country the right to host the Soccer World Cup.
The 24-member Federation of International Football Associations (Fifa) executive will also hear why Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco should rather host the prestigious event.
They will decide on Saturday morning who will host the 2010 Soccer World Cup, by way of a ballot starting at 9am.
A country needs 13 votes to win the bid. If none of the contenders win outright in the first round, the country with the least number of votes drops out.
Another vote is then held, and if no country gets 13 votes in the second round, a third and even fourth round is held.
The result will be presented at a press conference at Fifa’s Zurich, Switzerland, head office at noon, Zurich and South African time. South Africa in 2000 lost the right to host the 2006 extravaganza with a single vote to Germany. Morocco lost by a similar margin against the United States for the 1994 event.
The two countries are regarded as the front runners for the 2010 bid.
Under Fifa’s new rotation system the next World Cup scheduled for Africa will only take place in 2034.
On Friday afternoon sixteen South Africans will be ushered into a briefing room before the hard-nosed executive, chaired by Switzerland’s Sepp Blatter.
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.
Afterwards, there will be 10 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. 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