South Africa confident the World Cup will be ready
- 00:01:25
- ITN
South Africa confident the World Cup will be ready
South Africa's World Cup organising committee are certain the venues and infrastucture will be ready for next year's tournament. Chief Executive Officer of the committe, Danny Jordaan, said: "I'm confident that all the stadiums will be ready. Of course, the one in Cape Town, we've always said December or probably next year." In New York to discuss the social impact of sporting events with the Secretary General of the UN, Ban ki-Moon, Jordaan said everything was ready or on schedule, with the main draw in December the next significant marker. "The 4th December draw will actually give us a clear indication of the matches and therefore the expected support of each team and the demands that it will place on both accomodations, transportion, and other logistics, and then we can fine tune our operational plan," Jordan said. He also dismissed concerns over transport, accommodation and crime during the World Cup. Asked about crime, a serious concern because of South Africa's record levels of murder and rape and the recent flaring of violence in newly selected Olympic city Rio de Janeiro, Jordaan said visiting fans would be in the same situation as the 9.5 million tourists visiting South Africa annually, almost all without problems. "In our country, we have 9.5 million tourists per year. On average in December, we have 800,000 tourists, and we safeguards those tourists. Now if we can do that for 800,000, I cannot understand why we cannot do it for about 200,000 fans. In any case, we've hosted 147 major events in our country, and we never had a single incident. So we are quite confident," Jordaan said.
ITN | October 22, 2009
