Homeleigh Halt Guest House

Posts Tagged ‘FIFA’

The glare of the global football world will be on the Cape Town International Convention Centre at 7pm this Friday 4 December 2009, when the 32 teams who made it through to Africa’s first FIFA World Cup and their legions of fans find out exactly where they will be playing – and who they will be playing against.

South Africa’s Academy Award winner Charlize Theron will be the guest presenter assisting FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke during the Final Draw for the 2010 FIFA World Cup at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) on Friday, 4 December 2009.

 They will be joined on stage by a star-studded line-up of sports celebrities, including football star David Beckham (England), one of only a few players to score in at least three consecutive FIFA World Cups, Haile Gebrselassie (Ethiopia), two-time Olympic gold medallist and nine-time athletics world champion, Makhaya Ntini, the first black player in the South African cricket team,  John Smit, the captain of rugby world champions South Africa and Bafana Bafana player Matthew Booth.

Jacob Zuma, President of the Republic of South Africa, and FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter will welcome the audience at the beginning of the 90-minute live show.

Guests on the day will include Issa Hayatou, Chairman of the Organising Committee for the FIFA World CupTM, Nobel Peace Prize winners Frederik W. de Klerk and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, as well as former football icons Franz Beckenbauer, Michel Platini, Eusebio and Roger Milla.

The majority of the 32 coaches of the qualified teams are expected to be present at the draw.

Former South African President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela, one of the architects of the first African World Cup, will address the audience by video message

They’re calling it Vuvuzela-gate, and it’s presenting 2010 World Cup organisers with a real conundrum. Do we bend to the demands of foreign fans and players, who find the buzz of South Africa’s favourite plastic trumpet insufferable, or do we just toot on our vuvuzelas even louder, defiant in protecting our quirky local soccer culture from the slick, generic and Eurocentric mould of the World Cup?

In one corner are those who hate the vuvuzela, and expect it to blight the World Cup.  Poster-boy for the anti-vuvuzela movement is Spanish midfielder Xabi Alonso, who believes the instrument does nothing for the atmosphere and should be banned. He is supported by numerous mostly European fans who have been venting on online forums across the internet:

These things make among the more annoying noises on the planet. There’s no room for rhythm or beat or anything like it, it’s just the same nails-on-the-chalkboard monotone honk, over and over from all sides with absolutely no regard for what’s going on in the game or with other people using the same instrument. Maybe South Africans find that appealing. Nobody else does and it absolutely does detract from the viewing or game experience.

In the other corner are the majority of South Africans, and anyone else who may feel a bit annoyed by the arrogance of a call to ban the instrument. For the moment Sepp Blatter seems to be in this camp, but enough international pressure may force him to reconsider.

To be fair, the vuvuzela is an extremely abrasive sound, especially if you haven’t grown up knowing it as the sound of soccer. For this reason, most South Africans would probably be happy to make some compromises regarding their use of the vuvuzela, if engaged in a respectful manner. But vitriol and demands from vuvuzela-haters is unlikely to result in a satisfactory result.

Lets hope whatever FIFA decides, regarding the fate of the vuvuzela, that it does so with an eye on compromise. It may be that many foreigners are showing a precious, parochial streak towards this issue, but if they are really that unhappy about it, it may be wise to humour them. It would be disappointing for the World Cup to be ruined by their sulking.

Then again, maybe an encounter with a few thousand vuvuzelas will force the world, and soccer, to actually adopt some of the ideals of “ tolerance, respect, etc. “ that it constantly preaches.

This is just such a phenomenal event, the fact that Port Elizabeth’s stadium is the first one to be completed and ranks up there with the best in the world. It is indeed newsworthy. It is the most amazing and interesting phase that we are entering into with teams qualifying for the tournament. All South Africans should be swept up into the FIFA World Cup “Fever”.

With just over one year to the kickoff of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, this past weekend saw four major teams qualifying for the tournament, as well as the opening of South Africa’s first newly-built stadium for the event.

From the Asian zone Japan, Korea Republic and Australia became the first teams to qualify for Africa’s first World Cup next year, while the Netherlands became the first European team to qualify.

The Organising Committee’s CEO Dr Danny Jordaan was delighted at the calibre of the teams that qualified for the tournament this weekend.

The Netherlands, Japan, Korea Republic and Australia are big teams  on and off the field. Their qualification will begin to shape the great atmosphere we envisage for the event. The Dutch, clearly from a football point of view, have some of the most exciting players in the world. And off the field, Dutch fans “ dressed in their sea of orange ” are synonymous with bringing their special energy to any major event in the world. We’re looking forward to welcoming these exciting teams and their supporters, said Jordaan.

To cap a landmark weekend for the 2010 FIFA World Cup Organising Committee South Africa, the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in the country’s Eastern Cape Province became the first newly-built stadium to be officially opened for the tournament -  a year ahead of the tournament.

For us the newly-built 2010 FIFA World Cup stadium is a huge boost. With the four stadiums about to host the FIFA Confederations Cup ready, this brings to five the number of 2010 FIFA World Cup stadiums now complete a year to go to the event. And all the other five new arenas are also shaping up nicely to be ready well ahead of  the event”, said Dr Jordaan, who attended the stadium’s opening which was  attended by 25 000 residents of the city.