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Offline skins

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Struggling South Africa raises fears over hosting of World Cup
Cape Town


WHEN South Africa won the right to stage the 2010 football World Cup - the first country in Africa to do so - there was national rejoicing. The country had placed such importance on winning that Nelson Mandela and a raft of ministers were sent to Geneva to lobby Fifa, the game's world governing body. Now, however, serious doubts are emerging about the country's readiness and ability to stage the event.

"I am terribly worried," said Donald Lee, the opposition Democratic
Alliance's spokesman on sport. "I don't think the government yet understands what it takes." Polls show that one-third of South Africans do not believe their country will be ready. Power blackouts have recently hit all the big cities and the country's telecommunications have been revealed as grossly inadequate. The new mayor of Cape Town, Helen Zille, has now put on hold the building of a showpiece 68,000-seat stadium demanded by Fifa.

The stakes could hardly be higher. Sepp Blatter won election as Fifa
president thanks to his promise to give Africa a World Cup and the loss of
face South Africa would suffer if the event had to go elsewhere would do
incalculable damage to the African National Congress (ANC) government.

Fifa demands that all host cities sign contracts guaranteeing dedicated
traffic lanes for its officials and players, the cessation of all building
work throughout the tournament, free office space, telephone, internet and communications equipment and large-scale infrastructure works including back-up power grids - not just to keep the lights on in stadiums but to ensure that street lights, traffic lights and hotel lifts are fully
functioning. Currently no South African city can promise this.

South Africa's infrastructure is decaying. In Johannesburg street and
traffic lights do not work in large areas of the city, weeds grow in the
road and routine maintenance has all but ceased. Public transport is
virtually nonexistent and the roads are quite unable to cope with traffic
volumes.

Recent blackouts in the Cape resulted in huge jams as traffic lights failed
and saw hundreds trapped in office lifts, billions lost in agriculture and
industry and horrific sewage spills that have made the water dangerous to
drink. Despite steeply rising demand, not a single power station has been built since the ANC came to power in 1994.

"This was an entirely foreseeable crisis,", said Andrew Kenny, an
independent power consultant. "Year by year, government watched demand rise sharply and did nothing. It ignored all warnings." Fani Zulu, a spokesman for Eskom, the state electricity company, said there was no need to panic. The company was fast-tracking ways to produce substantial extra capacity by 2010, he said.

But many analysts dismiss this as wholly inadequate. "It takes seven to
eight years to build a big new station from scratch," said Kenny. "Nothing
started now will be ready by 2010." Sentech, the state company that handles the broadcasting distribution network, has declared that its equipment is antiquated. "We are not ready," said a spokesman, warning that the country "will suffer a severe loss of reputation if it fails to deliver on its obligations to Fifa".

We migt have to count on Ghana if they are able to organize successfully the CAN 2006, or request for a joint hosting programme.

Sentech's chief executive, Sebiletso Mokone-Matabane, said there could be chaos if the transmission system breaks down, as she fears it could.
A spokesman for Fifa said it was "totally confident" that 2010 would be "a
tremendous success". Fifa draws its confidence from the fact that South
Africa successfully hosted the 1995 rugby World Cup - but that was a far
smaller event and the country could then rely on the infrastructure that
white South Africa had bequeathed

Got this in my email for Ghana soccer website. Hosting the World Cup in 2010 would be a blessing for Africa and i hope they can pull it off and host a wonderful tournament.

Offline kounty

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Re: Struggling South Africa raises fears over hosting of World Cup
« Reply #1 on: April 17, 2006, 01:06:50 PM »
Quote
Fifa demands that all host cities sign contracts guaranteeing dedicated
traffic lanes for its officials and players, the cessation of all building
work throughout the tournament... large-scale infrastructure works including back-up power grids - not just to keep the lights on in stadiums but to ensure that street lights, traffic lights and hotel lifts are fully
functioning

fifa need to cool it on them demands.  So only rich nations must get to hold the world cup or wha?

Offline NYtriniwhiteboy..

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Re: Struggling South Africa raises fears over hosting of World Cup
« Reply #2 on: April 17, 2006, 01:11:53 PM »
well in order to have the world cup run smoothly yuh cant be having traffic lights in de city not wukking causing major traffic jam and ting..Yuh forget this eh no small tournament or wah bounty? Is hundreds of thousands of pple passing thru these cities and ting!
Not so much that it hadda be rich countries but things hadda be wukkin good for the tournament to go proper! Sad fact is the richer countries go be more easily able to provide these things! Fact is money required for everyting!
Back in Trini...

Offline kounty

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Re: Struggling South Africa raises fears over hosting of World Cup
« Reply #3 on: April 17, 2006, 02:05:59 PM »
dreadlocks...read that thing carefully - "back up power grids" you livin Ny you forget the power outages in NY last summer?  you think they have a back up?  In LA they does rotate who getting the power outage...and this is Babylon we talking about.  Who could afford to have a "back up power GRID"?
cease all construction in the city...you hear that?
dedicate traffic lanes for officials...so they will have to build a whole extra lane all around town, jus for when fifa officials and players ready to drive.  you know any city that have room for that?

those demands jus t peer ridiculous. You don't really need all that.

Offline Bitter

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Re: Struggling South Africa raises fears over hosting of World Cup
« Reply #4 on: April 17, 2006, 02:46:28 PM »
Is the normal story.
Every World cup or Olympics, it does have news stories saying how the host country/city behind schedule in xyz... Look how much talk Greece get and they had all they stuff in order. Look out for China  stories for the next olympics. And as for the backup grid and ting- pure bs. Sepp go be lucky if he limo have a spare tire.
Bitter is a supercalifragilistic tic-tac-pro

 

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