German Chancellor Angel Merkel has dismissed fears of crime derailing the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa.
Doomsayers had triggered heated debate in Germany with their criticisms over its hosting of the soccer spectacular in 2006 and she was sure the same ”may well happen in South Africa”.
Nonetheless, she was ”absolutely certain South Africa would prove itself to be a very good host”, she said from the pitch at Soccer City, in Johannesburg, on Friday during her three-day visit to South Africa.
Merkel said she had raised the issue with President Thabo Mbeki during their talks at the Union Buildings, in Pretoria, earlier in the day.
She had also offered him hints on how to deal with Fifa, she joked, quickly adding that her country had cooperated well with the world football body and that the only thing about Fifa which had changed was its inclusion of former German football team manager Frans Beckenbauer.
Merkel said she was happy to see German Football Association chief executive Horst Schmidt in South Africa as a consultant to Fifa SA. ”I can say if he is somewhere, the work is going well.”
That South Africa would receive help from other countries — as Germany had — did not signify that the country was not capable of holding the World Cup. ”Quite to the contrary,” she said.
Wherever Germany could be helpful, ”we will be helpful”, she said.
However, it did not want to in any way impose its ideas or to in any way push aside South Africa.
Merkel said the tournament was ”a unique opportunity to bring billions of people” to South Africa ”by television”.
South Africa would find its hosting of the tournament not only hugely important for the game of football, but for spreading knowledge about the country and southern parts of the continent.
Commenting on the government’s role in bringing about the tournament, Merkel said governments should ideally ”keep out” of sport, which was about enjoyment.
The government’s role should be to ”cooperate in the whole endeavour”, support the project and be good hosts to visiting dignitaries and establish good contacts, she said.
The German flag flew outside South African Football Association House, in Nasrec, as Merkel arrived to the warm welcome proffered by 2010 organising committee CEO Danny Jordaan — despite gusting winds and an icy rain.
The German Chancellor presented Jordaan with a German soccer jersey signed by the entire team. He in turn gave her two traditional African blankets and a bound report.
Just as the 2006 Soccer World Cup had united East and West Germany, so too was it hoped the tournament would unite South Africa’s previously divided black and white communities, said Jordaan.
”We want to walk away from this World Cup with one single South Africa,” he said, adding that nation-building was a key part of the local organising committee’s strategy.
South Africa was not developing infrastructure just for the World Cup, but ”to leave a better South Africa” beyond 2010.
He said construction on the various new stadia had already created 1 400 jobs.
Merkel and Jordaan spoke to some of the workers — many of them women –who had lined up on the Soccer City pitch in their blue overalls and hard hats to meet her and who later treated her to a rendition of Shosholoza.
Wishing them pleasure in their ”terribly important” endeavour, she reminded them that at some point in the future billions of people the world over would look at what they had built.
Their creations would indeed be ”a symbol of South Africa”.
The present German national team manager, Oliver Bierhoff, who was also in Merkel’s 100-strong entourage, expressed his excitement to see the Soccer City stadium under construction.
He also voiced his confidence in the ability of South African national coach Carlos Parreira to whip Bafana Bafana into shape for the tournament. ”He has still got some time,” he said.
Parreira had to make it clear to the players that they would get only one chance to play a World Cup in their own country, said Bierhoff. — Sapa