By David Gold
April 10 – Reports in the South African press claiming that only one of the prospective eight host cities, Rustenberg (its Royal Bafokeng Stadium pictured left), had signed host city agreements to stage matches during next year’s African Nations Cup, have been denied vehemently to insideworldfootball today.
The country’s Sports Minister Fikele Mbalula was reported to have said that the Government had not yet signed guarantees required for South Africa to stage the tournament.
It was also claimed that host cities were prevaricating on bidding formally to stage matches due to the high cost, reported in the South African media as being in the region of 22 million rand ($2.9 million/€2.2 million).
Speaking to insideworldfootball, the South African Football Association (SAFA) have disputed these claims, with communications manager Dominic Chimhavi claiming they are “malicious and “unfounded”, adding that “three or four cities have already signed” the agreements.
“Each and every city is very much excited and interested in being part of this tournament,” Chimhavi continued.
“Because of the high cost [of bidding to stage the games] they have to go back to their responsible authorities – we are talking about a huge amount of money.
“You cannot just make a decision on your own.”
This delay is why the announcement of the host cities, which was originally expected earlier this month, has been postponed to April 20.
Meanwhile, SAFA has signed an Organising Association agreement with the Confederation of African Football (CAF) in Johannesburg ahead of next year’s African Nations Cup.
At a two day meeting prior to signing the organising association agreement, CAF and SAFA discussed a range of organisational issues, and Chimhavi confirmed that the total number of stadia used is likely to be five at the most, rather than the seven it was claimed SAFA originally wanted to use.
It is a blow for the country as they had hoped to utilise some of the top class stadia left by the 2010 World Cup which they hosted.
Pretoria (its Loftus Versfeld Stadium pictured above) is the only city that hosted a World Cup match which has not bid to stage games next year.
After the agreement between SAFA and CAF, the latter’s vice-president Suketu Patel praised the tournament organisers.
“On behalf of CAF and its President Issa Hayatou, I would like once again to convey my sincere gratitude to the South African Government, the South African Football Association and the people of South Africa for taking up the challenge of hosting this tournament at such a short notice,” he said.
“At CAF, we have full confidence in South Africa to do a wonderful job – just as they did with the staging of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
“It will be a wonderful celebration of African football.”
South Africa is staging the 2013 tournament instead of Libya, who had to withdraw from hosting because of last year’s civil war.
They are now hosting the 2017 event, which was originally due to be staged in South Africa.
Contact the writer of this story at zib.l1735582107labto1735582107ofdlr1735582107owedi1735582107sni@d1735582107log.d1735582107ivad1735582107
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