By DPA
Durban : Organisers are looking forward to the preliminary draw for the 2010 World Cup in Durban Sunday content in the knowledge that construction is now well under way at the nine stadiums where the tournament’s 64 games will be hosted.
However, there are still some areas of concern such as the recent two-week strike by construction workers at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban and rumours of labour unrest at the Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit, although both projects remain on target.
With just over two years to go until the final FIFA inspection visit in the first week of December 2009, the expected completion dates for Port Elizabeth’s Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium and the Green Point Stadium in Cape Town are the only two causing headaches at the moment for the World Cup organising committee, albeit for differing reasons.
Construction on Green Point began in March of this year but environmental worries over noise and light pollution and its visual impact have hampered progress and increased costs on the 2.857 billion-rand project ($422 million), leading officials to concede that the new 63,691-seater stadium won’t be finished until in or around FIFA’s final visit.
With an estimated completion date of March 2009, there are certainly no worries about Port Elizabeth being ready for the main event in 2010 but the 1.243-billion-rand stadium has also been pencilled in as one of the stadiums to be used in the two-week long Confederations Cup, which begins on June 14, 2009.
Should the completion deadline for the Confederations Cup prove too tight, there is always the possibility that the event will be held in the other four stadiums: Free State in Bloemfontein, Ellis Park in Johannesburg, Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria and Royal Bafokeng in Rustenburg.
“The World Cup is about the stadiums. If you don’t have the stadiums complete, you cannot have tickets, you don’t know how many tickets you can have. That is the heart of the matter,” conceded World Cup Organising Committee CEO Danny Jordaan ahead of the preliminary draw.
“So at the moment we’re focusing on the completion of each and every one of our stadiums.”
In total, the South African government is spending 17.4 billion rand on World Cup infrastructure between 2006 and 2010 with over eight billion going on stadiums and the rest on transport.
Jordaan said that stadium investment in South Africa would be slightly more than the 1.5 billion euros shelled out by Germany when it hosted the 2006 event.
Green Point takes up the largest chunk of stadium investment followed by the new 70,000-seater arena in Durban, which has a budgeted cost of 2.551 billion rand. Part of the reason for the high cost of the Durban venue is that city officials need it fit as an Olympic stadium in case they bid for the 2020 Summer Games.
The Soccer City stadium in Johannesburg, which will host eight matches, including the opening game and final, is undergoing a total renovation at a cost of 2.15 billion rand with an expected completion date of April 2009.
Sid Clark, project management director for the 87,600-seater arena, said this week that everything remains on schedule with 2,100 workers on site at present.
The other World Cup stadium in Johannesburg, the 62,567-seater Ellis Park, is undergoing a 230-million-rand upgrade, which is due to be completed by July next year while both the new 45,553-seater Peter Mokabe Stadium in Polokwane and the 45,014-seater stadium in Nelspruit have completion dates of March 2009 with construction costs of 906 and 974 million rand, respectively.
The 49,598-seater Loftus Versfeld stadium, which is due to be ready in October 2008 will cost a lot less, just 98 million rand for a new roof, while the 147-million-rand upgrade of the Royal Bafokeng Stadium is expected to be completed by December 2008.
The Bloemfontein stadium is also undergoing an upgrade which has a completion date of August 2008 and a budget of 221 million rand. Each team will play in three separate stadiums in the pool matches while every city will get at least one match involving a top seed.