The battle to determine which South African cities will host the 2010 Soccer World Cup is on.
After the announcement in May that South Africa had won the bid to host the biggest single sporting extravaganza, it was assumed that all 13 stadiums listed in the bid book as existing or to be built for the World Cup would get the nod.
Not so, says South African 2010 Bid Company CEO Danny Jordaan.
”The Federation of International Football Associations’s [Fifa] requirements are eight stadiums [to host World Cup matches]. We will push for 10,” said Jordaan, who hosted yet another Fifa delegation this week.
This means that at least three, and possibly five, of the stadiums listed in the bid book may not be used as venues. Jordaan said stadiums not used as match venues could be used as training grounds for the participating teams.
The bid company presented 13 venues in 11 cities as potential hosts for the matches: Johannesburg (Ellis Park and FNB Stadium), Durban, Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Kimberley (new stadium to be built), Nelspruit (new), Orkney (upgrade), Polokwane (upgrade), Port Elizabeth (new), Pretoria (Loftus and new stadium to be built) and Rustenburg.
The news could come as a shock to residents of those towns whose expectations for roaring trade precipitated by hosting a Soccer World Cup match will prove unfounded.
In July Jordaan said the upgrading as well as the building of new stadiums will cost about R1,8-billion, and 13 South African towns and cities will have until June 2008 to meet Fifa’s deadline for the infrastructure to be in place.
Fifa spokesperson Andreas Herren said that the federation and South Africa will need to establish a budget and selection criteria for stadiums. Herren said that the decision by South Africa to go for fewer stadiums than it has in the bid book is not unprecedented.
”Germany decided to use 12 stadiums, from a total of 16 originally proposed in their bid for the 2006 Fifa World Cup,” he said.
Jordaan has in the past expressed his desire to avoid a scenario similar to Japan (which co-hosted with Korea), where three stadiums built specifically for the 2002 World Cup were bulldozed because there was no longer a use for them. That World Cup was played at 20 stadiums across the two countries.
This means that cities and towns such as Kimberley, Nelspruit, Port Elizabeth and Orkney, where new stadiums must be built, will need to come up with strong business cases before embarking on multimillion-rand investments in what might turn out to be white elephants.
The only certainties for hosting the matches are Johannesburg and Durban. Johannesburg’s FNB Stadium will be the site of the opening and closing ceremonies, one of the semi-finals and the final match. Ellis Park is also expected to host some matches in the knock-out stages of the tournament.
FNB Stadium manager Dennis Mumble said Johannesburg will be the hub of the tournament, with the Nasrec showgrounds being the official media venue.
Durban’s Absa Park ground, or another stadium the local council is promising to build specifically for soccer, is also a certainty for some matches.
”We will be doing a cities audit in October on the capacity of each city that wants to be the venue,” said Jordaan.
He said the audit will not be limited to stadiums: it will include establishing whether a city has the necessary road and information technology infrastructure, hotel beds and airport access.
”The cities [found lacking in the audit] will then have to tell us how they will close the gap. But there is still a long way to go before the final decision about which cities will host is made. We want to have everything completed by 2007 and be able to make the final decision in June 2008.”