Estimated South Africa World Cup Costs Increase Fivefold
The South Africa World Cup organizing committee might want to hire some new accountants and I mean quickly. Back in 2004 when the country landed the 2010 World Cup, it estimated that costs would be around $300 million. Today, the organizing committee is saying that it is going to cost $1.5 billion to host the month-long tournament. That is merely five times the original estimate, a slight difference I would say.
South Africa, a country that isn’t necessarily rolling in money, is spending quite a bit of dough building new stadiums, a questionable move considering what has happened to some of those huge, new stadiums that were built in South Korea and Japan for the 2002 World Cup.
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Comments
By Claude | October 18th, 2006 at 4:33 pm 
FIFA and South Africa finally got a reality check. I don’t know how much Germany spend on getting stadiums ready for WC2006 but it was a lot more than 300 million and we had the stadiums. The Berlin Olympic Stadium cost over $300 million to refurbish. Bayern Munich’s new stadium (it’s a little over a year old now) wasn’t cheap either and they probably could have used the Olympic Stadium which used to be their home field until the got the new one. Germany didn’t need to built transportation systems. Nothing beats the Autobahn and the train system is one of the best in the world. Hotels and other accomodations were pretty much in place too.
I would bet that the bottom line for South Africa will be closer to 3 billion once you add in the upgrades to the transportation system, hotels etc. That doesn’t include making South Africa somewhat safe for tourists. That South Africa is severely crime ridden is no secret.
Since South Africa is playing some friendly matches in other place because they can’t fill a stadium suggests the WC2010 stadiums will become white elephants.
I visited S. Korea in 1992 which was 4 years after the Olympics. I visited where the Olympic rowing has taken place. I was amazed to see concrete which was already crumbling. I believe this is a sign that too much sand was used and not enough cement. I sure hope they did a better job building the soccer stadiums or they could be crumbling already too.
Posted from 
United States
By Bense | October 18th, 2006 at 7:03 pm Oops we did it again, let Germany have it, I do not complain. 5 stadiums left being to be built.
No public transportation in place.
Give the World England or Germany again. At least you’re not getting robbed and infected by some disease too soon. Well, at least not in Northern Ingerland.
Posted from United States
By Jane | October 19th, 2006 at 2:07 am What about safety precautions, it is a beautiful country but not the safest by any means. Do FIFA actually look at the estimates before awarding the WC to a country? This I think could be one of those situations where things just won’t be ready in time.
Posted from 
Japan
By Chris | October 19th, 2006 at 7:52 am Give to Australia!!!! FIFA sure got a reality check but geez South Africa what a task! are they really ready to host an event of this stage?
Posted from 
Australia
By marcel | October 19th, 2006 at 12:22 pm I hope the future lessons to be learned are not very painful.
Posted from United States
By sam | October 19th, 2006 at 2:19 pm i hate to defend fifa, but they know what they’re doing…
Posted from 
Canada
By Mike Ward | October 22nd, 2006 at 9:18 am Guys reality check. We hosted the World cup cricket. The world Cup Rugby. The All Africa Games. We have as much as anyone else. Yes we do have a crime problem.Well guess what. Created by Capitalism that still continues to rape our economy. Guys rape and still except to get no crime. Wake up guys. South Africa is ready and like all else we will have our challenges. AMANDLAAAAAAAA
Posted from United States
By Claude | October 22nd, 2006 at 11:00 pm You know Mike the World Cup is the biggest sporting even there is. You can’t compare the attendance and cost to a cricket or a rugby championship. Most of the world isn’t interested in rugby and even less in cricket.
Don’t blame your crime problems on capitalism. Blame it on greed, poverty, lack of moral values etc. The communists have crime too we just don’t know how rampant it is because it isn’t published in the front pages of their newspapers or shown on the local news at 11.
Only time will tell if WC 2010 will be a fiasco or a brilliant Sepp Blatter move. I am willing to wait and see what happens.
Posted from United States
By cairo | October 23rd, 2006 at 5:22 am The rise of costs on the stadiums to be build is not the accountants s fault. The costs escalated due to the change of plan. The initial cost estimates were considering the building of 2 new stadiums and the upgrading of the other remaining stadiums which are in good conditions. But that all had to change due to the fact that most of the stadiums that had to be renovated were mostly rugby venues which meant after the world cup there will still be no great venues for soccer specifically. Taking into consideration the fact that soccer is the most supported sport in the country it wouldnt have been fair so the changes were welcomed. So the cost had to rise because instead of 2 new stadiums now is five. On the issue of playing our friendly in England is for the conveniency of our players who are playing in Europe because if you can check the date for that match is not an ideal situation given the club vs country issue.
By Willem | October 23rd, 2006 at 12:21 pm Well so far the costs are very low, cause nothing has been built yet! And the cities will be fighting with the guvernment for the next year who will pay for everything. Within one year the FIfa will have taken the WC away from the only african country that could have been organizing such an event 20 years ago…So in the end only a couple of million rands have disapeared in mysterious (or not so mysterious, because they will get away with it) pockets and nothing will have been built.
Perhaps better to let South Africa slowly die than to have the world cup and let the whole freaking world know how the savages kill and rape the football fans!
Just for those interested:
http://www.carteblanche.co.za/display/Display.asp?Id=3203
Posted from United States
By Ralf | October 24th, 2006 at 4:58 am If what Willim is saying is true then i wish South Africa could go back 20 years but the problem is South Africa was going to host and not be part of the event as they were banned by FIFA because of their legislature then. It was really going to be interesting. Remember the government was going to put a note saying BLACKS ONLY/ WHITES nly on all the stadiums as it was hapening in those years. But South African whites prfer rugby so i gues the black only notice was goin to be displayed. Great idea Willem isnt it? Oops Willem made me lose my morals sorry a world cup is for all and that was why Fifa had to ban South Africa then. Enjoy your life in the states and dont bother to check on us please because we wanna die a slow peacefull death as you say.
By Luyanda | October 28th, 2006 at 2:29 am Wow its amazing how much people can contribute in these notice boards and also the amount of prejudice they can display particularly thos e who left South African because they thought it is not good for them. The issue of the hosting the world cup has raised a lot of controversy to an extent that i was not longer optimistic until the Ceo of the Danny Jordaan gave some assurances about their planning and the amount of money promised by the government towards the preparations of the world cup. For Willem I would like to inform him if he has got any return ticket to S.A. that was a waste of his money he will never belong there. It is also surprising for the people of America to comment this way about the world cup whereas we have a global crisis at hand created by their government when invading Iraq and Afghanistan. If they were so briliant in analysis they should have done so correctly before invading those two countries.
We predict that the event will be a success as they have done so when intending to invade Iraq and Afghanistan for oil. I promise that the repecutions will for our failure if there are any wont cost nearly 10000 lives of innocent people. Let us all catch a wake-up gentleman in this world we survive with the prayers of God. I am sure Fifa would have loved to award the world cup to America but how many people would have attended that world cup hosted by war-lords. I dont mean to be rude let us give south africa a chance and raise reasonable expectations and stop predicting failure as if there would have been a country that would host without any minor failures.
Posted from 
United Kingdom
By Proud South African | October 29th, 2006 at 5:33 am South Africa is financially totally capable to make a huge success of this cup. Our infrastructure in the cities such as Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg is on a first world standard. Tourist facilities is better than many first world countries. Yes, public transport is bad, but I’m sure we’ll sort that out. Crime is a problem, but really is much more a perception than a reality. Fifa said the fllowing about the safety:
“General information indicates that South Africa shows a lack of security, but the Inspection Group was not aware of any such claims during the visit, although it was possible to read press reports on some violence in marginal areas during our visit. Despite this fact, we can say that the people of South Africa were always friendly, very boisterous and constantly celebrating during our visit to the country.”
The overwhelming majority of violent crime occurs in the poor areas at shebeens etc. South Africa is a middle class country and although poverty is widespread there are large parts of the country where people are very wealthy. The stadium in Cape Town will be in one of the more wealthy areas. One cannot use SA’s high violent crime rate and then say: “Aw, SA is too dangerous to visit!”
Personally I feel that people who will stay at home because of crime, will feel very sad when they actually hear from supporters in South Africa, that it’s not nearly as bad as they expected.
Our only obstacle is maybe a skills shortage… but as I said, we have enough money and people who have great management skills to make 2010 an enormous success. Personally I feel we will stun the world 
By Colleen | June 12th, 2007 at 10:05 pm I have spent the last 6 months writing a thesis on the impacts for South Africa and if someone like Willem would do some proper research into the issue you would be sure to uncover a multitude of positive impacts to the country. Yes, there are problems, but the more people who back the organizing committee, the greater the benefits will be. Stop putting people off our beautiful country, it’s the tourists that we really need!!! And I suppose with a name like Willem, you are undoubtedly an Afrikaans racist so no one is really going to care what you say. VIVA 2010 VIVA
Posted from Australia
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