South Africa: Latin America, Caribbean Host Soccer Fest for SA Kids
Lavinia Mahlangu (AllAfrica.com: BuaNews)
21 August 2007
Pretoria: Embassies of Latin American and Caribbean states, known collectively as GRULAC, are to host an under-13 soccer festival for young, South African school teams.
The event, taking place on Saturday at the University of Pretoria's Groenkloof Campus, is organised by the embassies with the special support of the South African Football Association (SAFA) and the 2010 FIFA World Cup Organising Committee South Africa, the Cuban embassy said Tuesday.
The GRULAC countries are Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Chile, Jamaica, México, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Surinam, Trinidad & Tobago and Venezuela. This initiative is also supported by the South African Department of Foreign Affairs and Pick 'n Pay. The tournament, now in its 7th round, will see 15 local primary schools face-off on the soccer pitch in the capital. Pretoria is set to host 2010 FIFA World Cup matches at Loftus Stadium in less than three years' time. "The main objective of this event is to contribute to the development of South Africa's youth and to improve the sport, educational and cultural links between the people of South Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean," said the Cuban embassy.
Loftus Stadium is currently being refurbished to meet FIFA's requirements. World Cup fixtures will be played in ten stadia across the country. Five venues are being renovated to comply with FIFA's requirements and five others are to be built from scratch.
Construction has started on all the five arenas to be newly built. Renovations to four of the stadiums set to host 2010 fixtures would be complete by December 2008. Along with Loftus, the other arenas to be refurbished are Vodacom Park in Mangaung, Royal Bafokeng in Rustenburg and Ellis Park in Johannesburg.
Stadia to be completed by October 2009, are Mbombela in Nelspruit, Peter Mokaba (Polokwane), Nelson Mandela Bay, Green Point (Cape Town) Moses Mabhida (Durban) and Soccer City in Johannesburg.
