The Chinese company ordered to stop making soccer World Cup mascots because of poor working conditions in their factory hit back at the accusations on Wednesday, saying they were victims of South African politicking.
FIFA’s branding company Global Brands Group (GBG) said on Tuesday that Shanghai Fashion Plastic Products Co. Ltd (SFPPC) must halt production of the Zakumi, the tournament mascot, until it improved working conditions.
South Africa will reap long-term benefits from the security measures being introduced for the World Cup, police and tournament organizers said on Friday.
Interpol said it was sending its largest-ever team to the tournament in June to help with security, one of the main concerns in a country notorious for its high crime rate where around 50 people are murdered daily.
The World Cup will do even more to forge a united South Africa than Nelson Mandela’s success in pulling a divided country together through the 1995 world rugby tournament, the chief organizer said on Thursday.
Danny Jordaan, chief executive of the local organizing committee, also said FIFA would introduce special charter flights and direct ticket sales in response to African anger at the difficulty of attending the continent’s first soccer World Cup.
The World Cup has boosted South Africa’s economy during a global recession but the tourism industry must not rip off foreign visitors during the soccer spectacular, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe said on Tuesday. At a joint press conference with Motlanthe, FIFA president Sepp Blatter attacked skeptics who doubted South Africa could organize the tournament but said sometimes he had needed to push authorities to ensure everything would be ready on time.
The system for selling World Cup tickets in South Africa has been too complicated and inaccessible to attract poor black soccer fans, who are the biggest potential audience, a former top player said on Friday. John “Shoes” Moshoeu, who played in the national team that won the 1996 African Nations Cup, said poor South Africans did not have the means or knowledge to use the Internet-based ticketing system for advance bookings.
World Cup organizers on Thursday agreed to increase the number of cheaper seats offered to South Africans to 29 percent of total tickets for this year’s tournament.
Local Organizing Committee CEO Danny Jordaan told reporters the LOC board of directors had decided to raise the allocation from 11 percent to give poorer South Africans more chance of seeing games.
South Africa’s showpiece venue for the World Cup will be ready for its first test events in April or May but the pitch at another of the new stadiums is being relaid again, local organizers said on Tuesday.
The 95,000-capacity Soccer City near Soweto, where both the opening match and the final of the World Cup will be played, will host one or two events before the tournament starts on June 11, chief organizer Danny Jordaan told a news conference.
World football’s governing body FIFA went on the offensive on Tuesday in a growing row with English tabloid newspapers over the readiness of England’s base camp for the World Cup finals.
A visibly irritated general secretary Jerome Valcke and his South African local organizing committee counterpart Danny Jordaan used a news conference to refute allegations that the hotel where the squad are likely to stay during the tournament was only half completed.
FIFA have denied reports that they will cut World Cup ticket prices or give away free seats to ensure capacity stadiums at the finals in South Africa later this year.
“There is no question of bringing down any prices,” FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke told a news conference on Tuesday in the wake of weekend media reports saying FIFA would reduce ticket prices to increase sluggish sales.
South Africa is working with international agencies like Interpol and the FBI to minimize the threat of terror attacks during the World Cup, the country’s top policeman said on Monday.
“Nothing informs us that we would be a terrorism risk but in the same vein it would be foolish to say we can’t look at that, that we can’t work hard so it doesn’t happen,” Police Commissioner Bheki Cele told Reuters in an interview.