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Will stadiums be white elephants because of Fifa?
Cape Town, Feb 8 (I-Net Bridge) – Joe Mcgluwa, the Independent Democrat spokesman on sports, has called on world football body Fifa finally to tell South Africa where the remaining six of the 32 teams competing in the World Cup will be based.
The deadline for base camp announcements was nine days ago, on January 31, a deadline which was extended for another week.
“I think Fifa must take us seriously when it comes to deadlines because we can’t on the one hand have sceptics in Europe saying we are going to be late for this and that, while on the other hand it is Fifa itself that is missing deadlines,” Mcgluwa said on Monday
“These deadlines are crucial because we are just four months away from kick-off and many hotels are keeping all their rooms open for that period, when in fact they may not even get to host a team.”
He said that hotels like the Blue Lagoon in East London, in the Eastern Cape were forced to give Fifa an undertaking 18 months ago that they would not rent out any rooms during the World Cup in order possibly to qualify as a team hotel.
“Over and above the financial losses and inconveniences to hotels, there are municipalities that have already spent hundreds of millions of rand trying to lure teams to set up camp in their cities,” Mcgluwa said
“For instance, the King Sabata Dalindyebo municipality has already spent 200 million rand building a multi-purpose stadium to attract a team to Mthatha, but this now looks highly unlikely.
‘Two hundred million rand is a huge amount of money in a city with a collapsing infrastructure and serious issues around poverty. It is only natural that residents ask questions about how some of these decisions were made,’ Mcgluwa says. “There is a very real danger that stadiums like the one in Mthatha will be nothing more than white elephants.”
By Michael Hamlyn
I-Net Bridge.
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