Thursday, January 28, 2010

Fifa want 'Fair Treatment' for South Africa World Cup





Fifa have opposed negative publicity surrounding the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, while expressing their satisfaction with the high ticket sales.

Fifa announced that 2/3 of the three million tickets are now sold - with just over four months before the start of the tournament.

Fifa's general secretary, Jerome Valcke said: "It's sad that every morning you wake up and every morning there are articles from the world's football family saying that people should not fly to South Africa, that this is a dangerous country, that this is not good, that there is no way this person should fly to South Africa because it is a crazy country, that FIFA and Blatter made the wrong decision to host the World Cup in South Africa."

"What we are asking is for fair treatment for South Africa, the same treatment that all the other World Cup countries got. Don't kill the World Cup before it has even happened."

When asked which countries had portrayed the negative press, Valcke said: "I would say mainly in Europe from Germany and England. These are the two countries.

"I have not seen so much from France, Italy or Spain or from Holland or any of the other countries that have qualified.

"But again, these two countries are very big voices in the football family and that's why any time they are talking about the World Cup football, it's immediately in the headlines.

"I even said to Danny this morning we should even ask Mr Zuma (president of South Africa) to give a call to his colleagues Angela Merkel (Germany), Gordon Brown (UK), etc, call them and say 'hey, tell your country South Africa is a country and it's not the end of the world'.

"So there is no specific person, there are a lot of people who have been talking about South Africa and saying don't go to South Africa' so my comment is going to all of them and not specifically to one of them."

However, Jerome Valcke did express his concerns over flights to South African and the high cost.

"There are some issues with flying. It's very difficult to find a seat from Europe to South Africa for the World Cup.

"The price of tickets is also extremely high. So we are working and trying to see with airline companies, including our partners Emirates, to see how we could solve this issue."

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