Ok guys, let the games begin.

Im not very confident about us being ready, and definitely not confident at all that any people who come to watch the tourney will go home with everything they arrived with!

What do y'all think?

Will be be ready? Yes, because FIFA won't allow us to fuck this up.

Will the vistors be RELATIVELY safe? Yes, possibly at the cost of the local tax payers (deployment of the more cops, etc).

I voted yes and yes. Things have a way of being fast tracked when necessary. For them to be so far behind schedule that its impossible to catch up here would have to have been a MAJOR bugger up. To the likes of zim's economy major kind of bugger up.

And worst case scenario the major tourist areas will be made safer at the cost of the rest, but I think the tourists at least will be safe.

We're lucky in South Africa in that we have a world class construction industry and relatively cheap labour.

I believe the stadiums will be ready in time for the Confederations Cup in 2009.

I'm not so optimistic about the safety of the tourists though!

But as lobo said, It will probably be done but at great financial cost to the citizens of SA.

I voted yes but more out of optimism...

The bit that grates me is everybody saying that they are ahead of Germany at the same stage of their planning. Great! but Germany had the infrastructure in place already... The bundesliga is not a mickey mouse league so their stadiums were already awesome. The work that was done was not major redesigns...

To the ppl that expect to have brand new stadiums built in the space of 2 years... I have 2 words for you...

New Wembley

More than 5 years in contruction. Dammit that better be finished this year

We as south africans will be safe because the criminals will be too busy robbing the tourists

Maybe we should try and have a major sporting event a few years in a row if thats the case Rush!

Some of the things will be ready but i doubt , everything will be ready.
The tourists will be safe as long as they stay indoors, but if the decide to go out and be tourists, well who knows what can happen.

heh. the tourists who are gonna get raped its sad actually. but mind you the english birds wont put up much of a fight

Just had a thought, after reading .

Maybe the renound English hooligan fans can sort out our criminals?? That would be one for the books.

lol dude 2 wrongs dont make a right

OK, you are right. Maybe they kill each other off. Kill two birds with one stone? Is that still 2 wrongs? or is that 2 rights?

Leave teh Barmy Army alone

Just because they're the most publicised hooligans, doesn't make 'em the worst. Try Turkish fans

Oh yeah, can't wait for all the SA fans to go on a rampage when SA gets booted out in teh first round. haha, that stadium will be farked.

I wasn't talking about the Barmy Army. Turkish, and English hoolies... either way, I don't mind.

hahahahahhaah really? so why does it take them 2 years to construct a 3 story apartment building (hyde park)

If they want anything done they better hire some german engineers and taiwanese construction companies... hell if they can build you a missle silo in 3 days so I'm sure a stadium would be built in 30days

Who knows....Maybe funds were lacking. Maybe the construction company sucks arse. Maybe there was an objection to the construction project. In fact it could be for any number of reasons!!



What do they pay their workers? 10, 15, perhaps 20 cents an hour??

pish better than what they pay here. Least they get things done!

Does everyone still think it can be done, with the recent shortcomings etc.

Yes it can, and will. Remember, FIFA is also keeping a close eye on this stuff, and they will NOT let the monkeys in charge of this screw it up.

I cant honestly say that i think SA 2010 is going to be a sucess, bilions of $ are being used of tax payers to build the stuff, if they finish in time, tourist are ignorant but i still dont think they are going to go to the small local entreprise to do bussiness and risk being robbed and raped, and even if everything goes down successfull, the people who paid tax to for this "honour" arent goin to get any of the fruits it bared.

What is the back up plan for a world cup? If FIFA decides we not ready does it go back to Germany?

I think that decision would have been made already hunter...

They always seem quite happy with the progress whenever they come checkup. Worst case scenario - i imagine they'd get their own contractors in to complete the job and ensure that the host country is never allowed to host another tourney...

Maybe they should send their police too

Australia offered to do it, since they have the infrastructure. The SA 2010 officials were seriously pissed.

I think it will be a "lukewarm success". The officials claiming that it will be better than Germany are talking
shit.

SA decide to emulate the giant screens they used in Germany. What do you think will happen if Eskom decides
to do some "load-shedding". Couple of thousand drunk&pissed fans... Generators are possible, but large scale lighting
on generators is a hectic mission. Esp. for 80min

However I have a perfect solution that will guarantee success: Do it like the politicians and redefine success. Eg. the new
traffic registration system that just went online. The minister of transport claims it is a "Success". The one Kia Dealer talked about
putting the backlog of cars created by the fuck-up onto rugby fields. Kinda different interpretations of success.


Yes, but they are relying (partially) on SA information. Remember that the Gautrain was quoted as 7bn project originally. Afterwards
they increased it to over 14bn. Just imagine SA tell FIFA that we won't be ready 2010, but maybe in 2020.


Even the best will need time to sort out the mess the previous one made

I think it is more a case of getting an excellent project manager than construction company. A good project mngr
will straighten out an incredible number of fuck-ups/people.

So much for patriotic optimism...

2010 will be fantastic.

Sure, some foreigners will be murdered and raped.

And yeah, some government officials will steal loads of money.

Oh, and of course the World Cup will need to be be renamed after someone involved in the 'struggle'.

But in the end it will go ahead...and the world will have given Africa a World Cup...and everything will be politically correct again in the world.

Ever heard of playing games during the day? Remember a Rugby world cup we had here? We can do it, but we need people to be positive about it.

I believe we can do it, people in general just need to be more positive about it.

Officially I heard that if SA cannot host this 2010 it goes back to the previous hosts!

GO GERMANY!

It hard to stay positive, i think that everything might be ready in time, but i dont know wheter local governments will have cent left wich means price increases on everything for the public.

That was 12 years ago ago. The requirements for electricity, etc has probably doubled in that space of time.


They send a team out to do an inspection, how exactly is that relying on sa info?

Indeed I have. FIFA is never going to allow all games to be played during the day. If you look at schedule from last time here you'll see that all the matches kick off at 15:00/16:00/18:00/21:00. Even if you consider that the sun sets later in Germany depending on time of year, there are still going to be many night matches. SA and Germany are in the same timezone. If they schedule the games during the day, half of Europe is in the office and the yanks are all sleeping. Not ideal for advertising revenue if nobody watches.

More info on 2010 lighting and power here and here

Were trying to present ourselves as a modern country here. Being dependent on the sun for light is not exactly technologically advanced.


They are sending delegates in suits, not construction experts. If the SA company says the
concrete pouring is 65% done, they won't check that.

Obviously they do inspect onsite, but a significant part is inspection-by-powerpoint. link


I agree that we can do it, I just think that it is not going to be nearly as impressive as our politicians would have us believe.

Not if the suns energy is harnessed to generate power.

People. thus far, FIFA has been pleased with the progress of the 2010 WC construction progress. Sure, we still have some pathetic, useless and corrupt monkeys in charge of things, but surely, FIFA would have already mentioned some concerns about things had they not been on track by now?

Yes, this country has a fucked up government in charge. Sure, things are pretty messed up over here. Sure, we have a stupid goon for a president (yes Thabo, you are right, crime is not so bad with you and your 24 hour bodyguards etc protecting you from the shit we normal people on the streets have to deal with all the time), but there is NO WAY that the FIFA delegation would allow the denigration of their own rep just so that it seems as though SA has a decent WC going when it does not.

Heck, if push comes to shove with the electrical demands, Eskom (another bunch of useless monkeys) could always just cut the power in surrounding areas in order to accommodate the game that is on at the time.

The rumour mill started again on the weekend...

Apparently England is being mooted as a backup option now.