IT has been a long and winding road to the 2010 World Cup, says Irvin Khoza, with the idea first discussed in 1994.
THE journey to the 2010 FIFA World Cupâ has been one long road filled with great expectations, heart-rending disappointments, and unprecedented joy not only for those people involved in bidding for the football tournament, but for South Africans at large.
Addressing about 400 people who had gathered at a City Press Soccer Forum at the Linder Auditorium at the University of the Witwatersrand's Education Campus on Thursday, 30 July, the chairman of the 2010 FIFA World Cup Local Organising Committee South Africa (OC), Irvin Khoza, spoke about South Africa's efforts to host the World Cup, a dream that started way back in 1994.
At the time FIFA changed the staging of the World Cup and voted for the US to host it in 1994 - its hosting had been see-sawing between Europe and South America since 1930. The seed was planted by the then South African Football Association (Safa) president Stix Morewa who, after returning from the 1994 World Cup, expressed South Africa's interest in hosting the World Cup in 2006 by writing to FIFA.
"To most people South Africa's idea to bid for the World Cup was ridiculous. 'Does Africa have the resources to stage an event of such enormity' they asked," said Khoza?
Preparations began in earnest in 1996 to bid for the tournament a decade later, with Danny Jordaan in the forefront to prepare the bid. In 1997, the SAFA executive committee adopted a binding resolution to bid for the 2006 World Cup and the South Africa 2006 World Cup Bid Committee was formed.
With the full blessing of FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who had gone all out to say it was Africa's time to host the World Cup, the committee officially launched its bid to CAF, the African football federation, and received a standing ovation from African football associations.
"The bid had Nelson Mandela's blessing and the bid team called on all its resources to launch the bid, wooing even government officials for support. We had to enlist the help of Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi (former public service and administration minister) who was such a wonderful person in helping us at that time."
One moment stood out for Khoza, when a FIFA delegation visited South Africa to inspect facilities. In Rustenburg, they came across 10 000 children - all wearing T-shirts with the words "South Africa" - lining the streets.
Then a strenuous campaign began to woo football bodies from around the world to throw their weight behind South Africa's bid. However, since CAF had not endorsed a lone bid from Africa, Morocco, Libya, Nigeria, Egypt and Ghana entered the fray, expressing their interest in hosting the 2006 World Cup.
However, by 1999, Egypt, Ghana and Nigeria had withdrawn, leaving South Africa and Morocco to fight it out. The latter was not the only threat to South Africa's dreams. Germany was the favourite and Brazil and England were running close behind.
"The last 24 hours before the announcement of the 2006 World Cup host country were tense. From the African diaspora, there were two votes for Morocco and two votes for South Africa," said Khoza.
In the later rounds of voting, the bid team heard that South Africa had beaten Brazil, Morocco and England, and was left fighting it out with Germany. Like a prophet of doom, Franz Beckenbauer, who led Germany's bid, hinted that his country would be successful to South Africa's team at a hotel in Zurich, Switzerland.
"Beckenbauer came to us and said, 'Gentlemen, may you pack your bags and go home.' This was the most heart-rending moment of our bid and nobody can forget that infamous night when Blatter announced that Germany had won the 2006 World Cup bid."
As Irvin uttered these words, one could hear a pin drop in the auditorium as people replayed that sad moment. What had transpired during the voting was extraordinary, according to Khoza. He said Germany won by 12 votes to 11, beating South Africa by one vote after the Oceania official, Charles Dempsey, abstained.
"After getting the results, we convened to try to unbundle the mandate of Dempsey. We were disappointed, very disappointed."
The first port of call when the South African delegation returned from Switzerland was Madiba's residence and, according to Khoza, he had only a few words to say: "Boys, go and fight back."
We had to find a lawyer to [help] us to understand the actions of Dempsey but Blatter came in and said he understood our plight. Even though there was no great support financially, internally we were energised.
"The president of FIFA is a great man and he likes the sound of the vuvuzela. He is the one who encouraged us to keep on going. FIFA said it was Africa's time and South Africa bid again for the 2010 World Cup."
Throwing the country a lifeline, FIFA announced that it would rotate the tournament between football confederations. As a result, the next cup - in 2010 - would be held in Africa. Alongside South Africa, four other African countries submitted their bids to host the 2010 World Cup - Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco.
Morocco again presented the biggest threat and South Africa went all out to search for votes. Nigeria had withdrawn its intention to bid, leaving South Africa the only country south of the Sahara in the running.
"We had nine assured votes and we had to try and convince Jack Warner, then FIFA vice-president and CONCACAF president, to vote for us. Jack bluntly told us that if we wanted his vote, we must bring Mandela to the Caribbean."
"However, we finally got the go-ahead when we arranged for a special flight, two doctors and a whole lot of medical equipment to accompany Mandela. But it was not to be when we were summoned by the government to Pretoria. Here, we were told that Mandela could not go to the Caribbean."
Dejected and with no other options left, Khoza said that driving back to Johannesburg, he decided to defy government orders and called Tokyo Sexwale, his only hope. Sexwale agreed to Khoza's suggestion to enlist the support of Graca Machel, Mandela's wife; but he could not find her.
It was finally agreed that Madiba would visit the Caribbean and he did so, with much pomp and fanfare. South Africa had the vote of Jack Warner.
Yet another opportunity arrived when 10 FIFA committee members visited the country to attend Thabo Mbeki's inauguration for his second term as president. While in the country, they saw for themselves the country's impressive infrastructure.
As the day of the announcement of the winning bid to host the 2010 World Cup drew closer, and not wanting to take a chance, the bid committee and invited Madiba, FW de Klerk and Archbishop Desmond Tutu to accompany it to Zurich.
And then Blatter opened the envelope and announced that South Africa had won the bid, beating Morocco, which won 10 votes and Egypt which had gathered no votes. "All this came after lots of sacrifices were made to bring the World Cup to South Africa," said Khoza to much applause.
Then the floor was opened for people to ask questions about the World Cup. Asked about the lessons that the OC had learned from the 2009 Confederations Cup, Khoza said the event was mainly to inform the OC and the country at large of its readiness to host the World Cup a year later.
"The event was not a test of our fitness. As much as we were successful in our security plan, I think we have to enlist the services of our security forces during 2010 to bolster security."
Park and ride facilities also had to be improved, Khoza said. Signage and communication about the park and rides had to be improved.
In addition, branding around the Confederations Cup was not "elaborate" enough and accommodation had to be improved.
"The biggest challenge is the psychological adjustment to understand the enormity of the World Cup - the role that each one of us must play in making the event a success."
Khoza said a huge number of international visitors would be in South Africa in 2010 and each one of them had to leave with a positive image of the country. "We got a 75 percent pass mark - a distinction - from Blatter for hosting the Confederations Cup but the question is how do we maintain this momentum."
One person was concerned about fan parks in 2010; Khoza responded that each host city would have one fan park for each match venue. Information about these fan parks would be unveiled in due course.
"The public viewing spaces are the prerogative of the host cities and they can have as many of these as possible. However, my personal view concerning public viewing spaces is that these should be given to people living in rural areas, areas where people don't have electricity or television sets."
Food vendors would be allowed to operate outside the FIFA-demarcated areas around stadiums, he said in answer to another question concerning vending. People selling artefacts could also sell around fan parks and hotels.
"There are places called matchvilles where people have the opportunity to sell their wares to tourists. Matchvilles are places designed to support tour operators and are popular tourist attractions."
A well-known and popular soccer fan, Saddam Maake, asked for clarification on whether FIFA would ban the vuvuzela, an instrument of which he claimed the rights of ownership. Khoza said FIFA would not ban it, adding that a lot of visitors during the Confederations Cup had taken a vuvuzela home.
Concerning World Cup tickets, Khoza acknowledged that the process of buying tickets was cumbersome.
"We hope that as we approach the next phase of ticket sales the system will be simpler. But at the moment people can only get tickets through the internet and FNB branches. But this all because of security risk," he explained.
Asked about his greatest fear for the tournament, he said what he feared most was Bafana Bafana qualifying for the final - "Because there is no way that we will be able to contain the people's excitement."
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