/ 10 June 2009

Confed Cup ticket sales satisfactory, says Khoza

South African authorities are satisfied with having sold 70% of the 640 000 tickets available for the Confederations Cup, South Africa 2010 Local Organising Committee (LOC) chairperson Irvin Khoza said on Wednesday.

Khoza described the tournament that kicks off at Ellis Park on Sunday as a warm-up event for next year’s World Cup, adding that these rarely proved to be sell-outs.

”We are satisfied with 70%. We think it is a good number. This is a test event and in a test event you don’t go for full capacity,” he told a media briefing in Cape Town.

Khoza dismissed a suggestion that unsold tickets would be given away to fill stadiums.

”It would be unfair,” he said.

He added that tickets for Sunday’s fixture between South Africa and Iraq were ”almost sold out”.

After a slow start, ticket sales for the Confederations Cup were boosted by an advertising campaign promoting the June 14-28 event featuring Brazil, Egypt, Iraq, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, South Africa and the United States.

Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe said there was a good chance Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva would come to South Africa to watch their national teams play.

He said the country was ready for kick-off for the tournament and added that preparations for the World Cup were also running on schedule.

International football governing body Fifa had endorsed South Africa’s security plans for the World Cup, which will involve deploying 31 000 police officers and 10 000 reservists, Motlanthe said.

He expressed confidence that threats by taxi operators to disrupt both events in protest at the introduction of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, would be defused in negotiations with government.

”We are confident that an amiable solution will be found to the concerns of the taxi operators regarding the BRT. The BRT system will be ready by 2010 and the taxi operators will be happy with it.” — Sapa