Cape Town - President Thabo Mbeki on Friday rubbished suggestions South
Africa will fail to successfully stage the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup.
The truth is South Africa is way ahead in preparations for hosting a successful
tournament, he said in his last weekly newsletter for 2006 on the African
National Congress (ANC) website.
Mbeki said some people, both locally and abroad, had done their best this
year to convince the nation it would fail to create the conditions for
a successful 2010 World Cup.
"Media suggestions were floated liberally that some countries were
already standing by to take over this responsibility from us, since it
was certain that we would definitely fail to do the things Fifa required
of us, to ensure that the 2010 Soccer World Cup would actually take place
in our country.
"Most fortunately, consistently, the President of Fifa, Sepp Blatter,
insisted correctly that our country was perfectly capable of hosting the
World Cup, and would indeed do so, setting new benchmarks in terms of
the success of this most important global sports tournament," Mbeki
said.
"The truth is that with regard to 2010, we have beaten all previous
records with regard to the preparations for the successful hosting of
the Fifa Soccer World Cup, including the benchmarks set by the highly
successful 2006 German Fifa World Cup.
"This includes the financial sponsorships without which it would
be impossible to hold the tournament."
The work done to prepare for 2010 represented one of the most prominent
items of good news of which South Africans should be proud.
Mbeki also had a word of inspiration for the national team, Bafana Bafana.
"The appointment of a new coach, Carlos Alberto Parreira, is an opportunity
to leave recent disappointments behind and make progress towards a successful
campaign in 2010.
"History suggests that an uplifting performance by the host country
is often an integral element in a successful Fifa World Cup, and we are
confident that the hope of the nation, Bafana Bafana, will rise to the
occasion in 2010," he said.
,
22/12/2006.
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