President Thabo Mbeki on Friday rubbished suggestions South Africa will fail to successfully stage the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup.
The truth is South Africa is way ahead in preparations for hosting a successful tournament, he said in his last weekly newsletter for 2006 on the African National Congress website.
Mbeki said some people, both locally and abroad, had done their best this year to convince the nation it would fail to create the conditions for a successful 2010 World Cup.
”Media suggestions were floated liberally that some countries were already standing by to take over this responsibility from us, since it was certain that we would definitely fail to do the things Fifa required of us to ensure that the 2010 Soccer World Cup would actually take place in our country.
”Most fortunately, consistently, the President of Fifa, Sepp Blatter, insisted correctly that our country was perfectly capable of hosting the World Cup, and would indeed do so, setting new benchmarks in terms of the success of this most important global sports tournament,” Mbeki said.
”The truth is that with regard to 2010, we have beaten all previous records with regard to the preparations for the successful hosting of the Fifa Soccer World Cup, including the benchmarks set by the highly successful 2006 German Fifa World Cup.
”This includes the financial sponsorships without which it would be impossible to hold the tournament.”
The work done to prepare for 2010 represented one of the most prominent items of good news of which South Africans should be proud.
Mbeki also had a word of inspiration for the national team, Bafana Bafana.
”The appointment of a new coach, Carlos Alberto Parreira, is an opportunity to leave recent disappointments behind and make progress towards a successful campaign in 2010.
”History suggests that an uplifting performance by the host country is often an integral element in a successful Fifa World Cup, and we are confident that the hope of the nation, Bafana Bafana, will rise to the occasion in 2010,” he said. — Sapa