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/ 4 September 2008
SA’s 2010 World Cup organisers are upbeat about Fifa president Sepp Blatter’s visit next week in order to ”showcase” the progress made.
President of world soccer governing body Fifa Sepp Blatter says the football world should trust South Africa to host a successful World Cup in 2010.
Football is in danger of losing its prominent position at the Olympics after a ruling allowing clubs to deny them a place at the Games.
Fifa is in talks with authorities in Brazil about staging the 2010 World Cup there should South Africa be unable to host the event.
Fifa president Sepp Blatter has compared long-term contracts between soccer players and their clubs as a form of ”modern slavery”.
Fifa president Sepp Blatter said on Sunday that he still believed in South Africa as the World Cup host, but also said he had a ”plan B”.
It is 10 years since the South Africa Football Association (Safa) first announced its intention to host the sport’s biggest showpiece, the World Cup. Today, the idea, first mooted by former Safa president Solomon ”Stix” Morewa, is less than 740 days from being realised. The Mail & Guardian tracks the history of South Africa’s biggest sporting fantasy.
Further outbreaks of violence against foreigners in South Africa could lead Fifa to move the 2010 World Cup elsewhere, the United Nations adviser on sport said on Thursday. Willi Lemke said if the scenes repeat themselves, ”Fifa will rethink its decision in favour of South Africa and, if necessary, pull the plug.”
World soccer governing body Fifa expressed its concern on Tuesday about this month’s deadly attacks on foreigners in South Africa, but said the violence would not affect the 2010 World Cup. The attacks have raised concerns about the high crime rate in South Africa and the potential risk to foreigners who visit the country for the soccer tournament in 2010.
Fifa president Sepp Blatter will forge ahead with plans to curb the number of foreign players at soccer clubs, saying on Tuesday that the organisation should coral the world of sport into helping make it happen. The Swiss head of world soccer’s governing body insisted that Fifa would not be ”going into confrontation” with any employment laws.
As the sun set on another bloody day of xenophobic violence in Gauteng on Monday, at least 22 people were reported dead, many more injured and 217 arrested for fierce attacks on both foreigners and local residents living in the greater Johannesburg area. Aid organisations were assisting thousands of refugees at civic centres and police stations.
The South African economy could see a turnover in excess of R40-billion during the Soccer World Cup finals, which kick off at the new Soccer City in Johannesburg in June 2010. In an interview on Wednesday, chairperson of the 2010 local organising committee Irvin Khoza was upbeat that South Africa will host the best World Cup in history.
Brazilian Carlos Alberto Parreira announced his resignation on Monday as coach of 2010 World Cup hosts South Africa. World Cup-winning coach Parreira, who served 15 months of a three-and-a-half-year contract aimed at transforming the struggling national team, quit because his Brazil-based wife is ill after recent major surgery.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has had enough of the 2010 stadium labour disputes and has now asked Fifa president Sepp Blatter to intervene. There have been a number of strikes over wage disputes by construction workers working on the Green Point stadium in Cape Town, Durban’s Moses Mabhida stadium and the Mbombela stadium in Nelspruit.
Fifa president Sepp Blatter showed his solidarity with the construction workers who are getting 10 stadiums in South Africa ready for the 2010 World Cup. Blatter met with leaders of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on Tuesday and said he wanted them to be treated fairly while building and upgrading World Cup venues.
Fifa president Sepp Blatter believes that players guilty of deliberately dangerous tackles should be banned from football, the Times reported on Friday. Blatter made the comments in an interview before Saturday’s meeting at Gleneagles, Scotland of the International Football Board.
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/ 19 February 2008
With billions of dollars in illegal bets exchanged every year and allegations of match-fixing rife, the world’s most popular sport is waging a battle to protect its integrity. Early Warning System has the task of trying to keep Asian crime syndicates and other gambling mafias around the world from fixing matches.
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/ 18 February 2008
The Fifa local organising committee (LOC) on Monday rubbished claims of divisions within the local 2010 organising body on Monday. LOC chairperson Irvin Khoza said the focus should be on the 2010 project and not his relationship with committee CEO Danny Jordaan.
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/ 18 February 2008
South America and Africa have no chance of hosting the 2018 Soccer World Cup. ”Of all five continents available to present, South America and Africa will not be allowed to,” Fifa president Sepp Blatter said on Sunday. ”If we hadn’t taken the decision to have a rotation policy in the first place, Africa would never had had the chance to host the World Cup, neither would South America.”
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/ 17 February 2008
Infighting and mistrust are tearing the 2010 Local Organising Committee (LOC) apart, a media report said on Sunday. Key players in the LOC — tasked with organising Africa’s first Fifa Soccer World Cup — were barely talking to each other, while chief executive Danny Jordaan has been labelled a ”control freak”.
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/ 15 February 2008
Fifa president Sepp Blatter has opposed plans by the Premier League to play matches abroad and warned that the proposal could harm England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup. ”This is abuse. The rich Premier League is trying to get richer and wants to expand the importance of that league,” Blatter told the BBC.
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/ 9 February 2008
Support within English football for controversial plans to take Premier League matches around the world appeared to be growing on Friday as influential figures including Arsene Wenger and Roy Keane voiced their backing. But the prospect of opposition from Fifa also loomed large after the world governing body said it would examine the proposals.
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/ 30 January 2008
Frequent power failures in South Africa won’t affect the 2010 Soccer World Cup, the man who is expected to be the country’s next president said on Tuesday. African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma met Fifa president Sepp Blatter after attending the World Economic Forum in Davos last week.
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/ 20 January 2008
Downtown Accra is decorated with ”Go Ghana” banners as this lively city of nearly three million people prepares for the start of the continent’s most storied soccer tournament. A million visitors are expected in the West African state for the Africa Cup of Nations, which begins on Sunday with a sold-out opener between the host nation and Guinea.
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/ 15 January 2008
When world football supremo Sepp Blatter implored the South African national team to ”wake up” after poor results last year, he could not have been referring to Sibusiso Zuma. Only last weekend Zuma demonstrated again that he is razor sharp when it comes to putting the ball in the net.
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/ 25 November 2007
Despite qualifying automatically as hosts of the 2010 World Cup, South Africa got some of the toughest opposition possible as preparation in the 2010 World Cup draw on Sunday. The draw, broadcast live to 170 territories, took place at the Durban International Convention Centre.
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/ 25 November 2007
Soccer administration in Africa is plagued by too much political interference, with sports ministers often attempting to control national teams, said Fifa president Sepp Blatter in Durban on Sunday. However, he praised the backing that the South African local organising committee has received from the government.
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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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/ 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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/ 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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/ 6 November 2007
Fifa president Sepp Blatter is working with the European Union on plans to reduce the number of overseas players dominating teams in leagues across Europe. Speaking to reporters in the Malaysian capital, where he is attending a regional award ceremony, Blatter said it was time for a change in Europe.