Fifa no charity, warns Jordaan

2004-06-18 09:04

Johannesburg - The international soccer body Fifa is no charity organisation and it demands target revenues from the once-every-four-years World Cup tournaments.

SA 2010 Bid Committee CEO Danny Jordaan gave this warning to the Black Empowerment Forum's Sandton branch at a function on Thursday evening.

He said Fifa wanted to earn $2.8bn "to take home to Zurich" from the South African event.

While he hoped that local suppliers could participate as partners on a second tier level, Jordaan pointed out that the World Cup in 2006 in Germany had appointed Emirates Airlines as the official airline partner and Hyundai the official car supplier.

Jordaan described the World Cup as an earning opportunity that came only once every four years for Fifa.

"This is a cash cow from which all activities in four years will be funded. If they don't reach their target, they have a problem."

Jordaan further stressed the need for improved skills development between now and 2010, particularly in stadium management, media centre management and security.

"Insurance is a massive issue," he said.

"There will be queries about the exact number of trained, professional security people in the country... if anything happens to (British star David) Beckham, who will be sued?"

Jordaan said that the 2010 event would be an opportunity for countries in the region to promote themselves on the world's television screens.

Lucrative broadcasting rights

He said he had invited countries in the region to host the 32 World Cup teams for their warm-up matches.

"We have said to the Southern Africa region - South Africa alone cannot host 128 matches.

"These matches should be the international teams against the regional teams and when there's a match against Zambia, they can show the Victoria Falls on the world's television screens."

This way, countries in the region could also benefit from lucrative broadcasting rights, he said.

Other opportunities he highlighted were the business that would be generated from venues where there were big screens, showing the matches live and from budget accommodation.

"Football fans tend to come from the working classes," he said.

Jordaan stressed that telecommunications and information technology had to be up to scratch.

He cited the hypothetical example of how difficult it could be at half-time during the final when a spectators in a packed stadium were on their cellular phones, speaking to people back home - and reporters might be trying to file copy.

"Could the telecommunications carry that traffic from a single venue?" he asked.

Another consideration would be finance and banking, he said.

"Banks in Polokwane might be faced with a flood of people from Croatia wanting to exchange their currency for rands."

- SAPA