Friday, June 4, 2010

Preparations

The Lukasrand Tower in Pretoria sporting a football in anticipation of the world cup

Five new stadiums have been built for the tournament, and five of the existing venues are to be upgraded. Construction costs are expected to be R8.4bn.

In addition to the stadiums being built and upgraded, South Africa is also planning to improve its current public transport infrastructure within the various cities, with projects such as the Gautrain and the new Bus Rapid Transit system (BRT) titled Rea Vaya.[14] Danny Jordaan, the president of the 2010 World Cup organising committee, has said that he expects all stadiums for the tournament to be completed by October 2009.

The country is also going to implement special measures to ensure the safety and security of local and international tourists attending the matches in accordance with standard FIFA requirements, including a temporary restriction of flight operation in the airspace surrounding the stadiums

The readiness of this African nation to host one of the biggest events in a sports that is worshiped by millions has received positive response from FIFA. FIFA has rated the readiness of South Africa at eight on a scale of 10 with the hope that they would be completely ready before the matches actually start.


Construction strike

70,000 construction workers were supposed to be working on the new stadiums walked off their jobs on 8 July 2009. The majority of the workers receive R2500 per month (about £192, €224 or $313), but the unions allege that some workers are grossly underpaid. A spokesperson for the National Union of Mineworkers said to the SABC that the "no work no pay" strike will go on until FIFA assesses penalties on the organisers. Other unions threatened to strike into 2011. The World Cup organising committee downplayed the strike and expressed confidence that the stadiums will be ready.

Final draw
See also: 2010 FIFA World Cup seeding

The FIFA Organising Committee approved the procedure for the Final Draw on 2 December 2009. The seeding was based on the October 2009 FIFA World Ranking and seven squads joined hosts South Africa as seeded teams for the Final Draw. The committee also approved the composition of the other pots as well as the procedure for the final draw. Pot 2 was composed of teams from Asia, Oceania, and North and Central America and the Caribbean. Pot 3 included teams from Africa and South America. Pot 4 had the remaining European teams.

Hosts South Africa were automatically positioned as A1; the other seeded teams were drawn into the other groups B–H, but were always in position 1 of their group. Groups were drawn from A to H and the positions in the group were drawn for Pots 2 to 4. Geographical criteria also were respected, meaning that no two teams from the same confederation were drawn in the same group (except European teams, where a maximum of two will be in a group); i.e., South Africa cannot play the African teams from Pot 3 and Argentina and Brazil cannot be drawn against the three remaining South American teams. The first two African teams drawn from Pot 3 are placed with Argentina and Brazil. Similarly, hosts South Africa may not be paired with any of the other African nations (also placed in Pot 3).

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