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/ 25 November 2007
Durban’s Absa Stadium — the home of the Super 14 Shark franchise — could become a tennis stadium or part of a ”high-performance centre”, it was announced on Saturday. The head of strategic projects at the eThekwini municipality said the plan is for the 2010 Moses Mabhida Stadium to host rugby, soccer and athletics.
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/ 25 November 2007
An Austrian national was shot and killed at Selborne Estate, which is enclosed by electric fencing, in Durban south, KwaZulu-Natal police said on Saturday. The 46-year-old man booked into the estate at about 3pm on Friday and went to play a round of golf. His body was discovered on the course at about 6pm.
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/ 24 November 2007
Fifa president Sepp Blatter is confident the World Cup 2010 stadiums will be ready on time, and the workers building them will get a bonus if they don’t go on strike again. Also, local fans discovered on Saturday they will get cheap and even free tickets to the games.
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/ 24 November 2007
With South Africa set to stage the qualifying draw for the 2010 World Cup, Fifa president Sepp Blatter is claiming a personal victory. ”I am very happy to be here in Durban, South Africa — [in] my continent,” he said. The Fifa leader claims credit for making sure Africa finally gets to host soccer’s biggest championship.
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/ 23 November 2007
While sporting attention is turned to the draw for the preliminary round of the 2010 Soccer World Cup this weekend, a different view of soccer in South Africa is being premiered in front of a celebrity audience on Friday. Director Junaid Ahmed’s film More Than Just a Game tells the story of how political prisoners on Robben Island used soccer as one of the means of survival.
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/ 23 November 2007
A record television audience is expected to watch the 2010 Soccer World Cup preliminary draw when it takes place in Durban on Sunday afternoon. World Soccer governing body Fifa spokesperson Nicolas Maingot said on Friday that while television viewer figures would be hard to estimate, there would be 34 television channels broadcasting the draw live.
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/ 23 November 2007
South Africa’s ability to stage the world’s most widely watched sporting event will undergo intensive scrutiny on Sunday when it hosts the qualifying draw for the 2010 Soccer World Cup. Thousands of football administrators and journalists will be present in Durban, with hundreds of millions more watching on television, for an extravaganza designed to silence the sceptics.
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/ 22 November 2007
Fifa president Sepp Blatter arrived in Durban on Thursday amid tight security. His arrival ahead of the 2010 preliminary draw came on the same day that 2010 South African local organising committee CEO Danny Jordaan unveiled the 2009 Confederations Cup emblem at Durban’s International Convention Centre.
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/ 22 November 2007
A total of 170 countries will go into Sunday’s draw for the 2010 World Cup preliminary competition being held in Durban, Fifa said on Thursday. The teams will be chasing 31 places at the World Cup finals to be hosted by South Africa in 30 months’ time.
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/ 22 November 2007
World soccer governing body Fifa was concerned about 2010 stadium preparations, its general secretary, Jerome Valcke, said on Thursday at a media briefing in Durban. Stadium workers in Nelspruit, Durban and Cape Town recently staged strikes for better wages and this raised concerns that South Africa would not be ready to host the World Cup.
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/ 21 November 2007
When the first World Cup was held in Uruguay in 1930 only 13 teams participated in the finals and every country that wanted to play in the tournament was welcomed with open arms. Since then, the competition has grown in leaps and bounds and more than 200 countries have entered the first World Cup on African soil.
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/ 21 November 2007
Edgars Consolidated Stores has been appointed the official operator for the 2010 Fifa World Cup stores in South Africa, the soccer body announced on Wednesday. The official event stores will be in 160 branches of Edgars throughout the country, with the first shop scheduled to open later in November to coincide with the preliminary draw in Durban on November 25.
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/ 21 November 2007
Lazarus Tlhahane (69), a grandfather seven times over, is hoping to be adopted. He owns one of the 15 makeshift stalls that have sprung up across the road from the Soccer City stadium in Soweto. From his stall Lazarus serves up plates of pap and stew to some of the site’s 1Â 600 construction workers.
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/ 20 November 2007
South Africa and Mozambique on Tuesday signed a treaty for the establishment of a Joint Permanent Commission on Defence and Security. Speaking at the signing of the agreement, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said cooperation on defence and security between South Africa and Mozambique is critical with an eye on the 2010 World Cup.
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/ 15 November 2007
Southern African countries face a ”very real challenge” of regime change encouraged by foreign powers, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said on Thursday. He was opening the ministerial session of the South Africa-Zimbabwe Joint Permanent Commission on defence and security in Vanderbijlpark.
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/ 14 November 2007
The strike at the 2010 stadium in Durban will not affect the preliminary draw of the Soccer World Cup, local organising committee CEO Danny Jordaan said on Wednesday. Workers at the stadium went on strike last week demanding better wages and monthly project bonuses of R1 500. The draw will determine the playing groups for the World Cup in South Africa.
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/ 14 November 2007
The ongoing strike that has seen construction workers down tools at Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium could spread to other 2010 Soccer World Cup stadiums that are under construction, as well as the high-speed Gautrain. Meanwhile, about 600 striking construction workers marched to Durban’s City Hall on Wednesday.
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/ 14 November 2007
Confirmation that the Soccer World Cup has arrived on the shores of Africa is little more than a week away. The reality for many in the soccer fraternity will only sink in when they watch the preliminary draw beaming out from Durban’s International Convention Centre to television screens across the world.
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/ 11 November 2007
Forty years after Robben Island detainees formed the Makana Football Association inside the island fortress, the club was officially recognised by Fifa, the sport’s international governing body. Now the little-known story of how prisoners set up their own league under the noses of the warders is to be told in a feature film.
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/ 7 November 2007
Bafana Bafana coach Carlos Alberto Parreira has called for common sense to prevail in the quest to build a winning team for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The Brazilian named two squads for games against the United States and Canada — but due to the Premier Soccer League schedule, the local players he selected will arrive late for training.
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/ 7 November 2007
Hawkers, often the breadwinners of their families, should not be marginalised in the run-up to the 2010 Soccer World Cup, a colloquium on the international soccer spectacle heard in Johannesburg on Wednesday. Stadiums under construction are often far from amenities and hawkers are providing much-needed services to construction workers.
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/ 6 November 2007
The first Soccer World Cup to be held in Africa can be the glue which binds a continent too often riven by conflict, according to the man in charge of organising the world’s most popular sporting event. Danny Jordaan said the 2010 tournament was a perfect opportunity to showcase Africa and banish negative stereotypes.
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/ 30 October 2007
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s 2007 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement has received a cautious thumbs-up from some opposition parties. Tabling the budget in the National Assembly on Tuesday, he announced that almost R81,5-billion was to be added to the government’s projected spending over the next three years, bringing spending growth to 6,4% a year in real terms.
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/ 30 October 2007
Brazil, the only bidding country, were named as the host nation of the 2014 Soccer World Cup finals by Fifa, world soccer’s governing body, on Tuesday. Brazil, who have won the World Cup a record five times and are the only country to have played in all 18 World Cup finals tournaments, last staged the event in 1950.
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/ 30 October 2007
South Africa will spend an estimated R81,4-billion over the next three years to ease poverty and unemployment and deliver improved services, said the Treasury on Tuesday. The Treasury said in its Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement that education and health programmes will be a priority.
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/ 30 October 2007
Australia are likely to bid to host the 2018 World Cup following Fifa’s decision to scrap its rotation policy. Football Federation Australia chief executive Ben Buckley said Australia was ”very serious” about bidding for the 2018 World Cup now that it was open to countries outside of North America.
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/ 29 October 2007
Fifa’s executive committee has voted unanimously to end its policy of rotating the hosting of World Cups through its six continental confederations. Executive committee vice-president Chung Mong-joon told reporters on Monday that the rotation policy had been dropped with effect from the 2018 World Cup.
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/ 29 October 2007
Fifa’s executive committee is expected to drop its controversial Soccer World Cup rotation policy when it meets at the organisation’s headquarters in Zurich on Monday. World soccer’s governing body decided in 2000 that it would rotate its most prestigious tournament around its six continental confederations.
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/ 28 October 2007
An enterprising and attack-minded Free State Stars gobbled up Jomo Cosmos’ cup hopes at a rain-soaked Goble Stadium in Bethlehem on Saturday afternoon and qualified for the semifinals of the Telkom Knockout competition with a deserved 1-0 victory.
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/ 26 October 2007
”Hot Beans” is one of the many names suggested by readers of a daily newspaper for Bafana Bafana after President Thabo Mbeki this week questioned the distinction of the national senior soccer team’s name. The Springboks’ recent Rugby World Cup victory inspired some fans to name the team after their coach, Jake White.
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/ 26 October 2007
Hardly a month after Finance Minister Trevor Manuel cast aspersions on the integrity of local football administrators, the Premier Soccer League (PSL) has suffered another setback with the finding that Mamelodi Sundowns were guilty of forging the signature of Jose Torrealba to extend the striker’s contract.
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/ 26 October 2007
Catching a taxi from the Johannesburg CBD to the FNB Stadium outside Soweto can be a nightmare on match days. The queues are long and football fans are regularly charged double the normal rate, especially in the evenings. A fan from Alexandra, north of Johannesburg, spends on average R20 for a single trip to the stadium.