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South Africa Ready For 2010 World Cup

Mar 8, 2010 | Filed Under: General News   Share

Needless to say South Africa had quite a bit of work to do to prepare for the first ever World Cup to be held on the African continent, and one of the most pressing needs was to build enough stadiums to accommodate the huge crowds expected to attend.  What has resulted is a series of well conceived, smartly designed arenas that have the capacity to hold the throngs of football fans ready to descend on Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg,  Mangaung/Bloemfontein, Nelson Mandela Bay/Port Elizabeth, Nelspruit, Polokwane, Rustenburg and Tshwane/Pretoria to support their team and country.

While the Super Bowl is the most popular sporting event in the USA, it pales in comparison to the size and scope of the World Cup.  Football (soccer to Americans) is the most popular game in the world and South Africa is expecting nearly 500,000 people to attend this year’s World Cup - the world wide television audience is predicted to top the 1 billion mark. 

The efforts to prepare the ten stadiums necessary for the World Cup started in 2006.  Five existing stadiums were upgraded and five built from the ground up.  In addition, major roadwork around each stadium was necessary to accommodate the traffic and despite the strikes by workers building the stadiums, reports of stadiums not being ready for the start of the matches and the logistical nightmares of undertaking a project of this magnitude all will be in order at the beginning of play on 11 June, now just under 100 days away.

Get ready for World Cup football South Africa style.

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