South Africa 2010

For a long time now, no one has mentioned the so-called ‘plan B' in South Africa. Last year, there was talk that should South Africa not be ready in time, another country would be waiting in the starting blocks as alternate hosts of the World Cup. This was when South Africa was plagued by problems hindering its preparations for the world's biggest soccer tournament.

Now, the threat of striking construction workers in Polokwane, for example, is gone, and delays caused by rainfall and strong winds, which hindered the construction of the stadium in Durban over and over again have been overcome.

Test run in June

Four of the 10 World Cup stadiums are to be given a test run starting on Sunday. That's the first day of the Confederations Cup, which opens with a match between South Africa and Iraq at Johannesburg's Ellis Park Stadium. For a while, the completion of the stadiums was one of the biggest problems facing World Cup organizers.

Alf Oschatz from Berlin has World Cup stadium experience. Before Germany hosted the World Cup in 2006, he worked at the stadiums in Frankfurt and Berlin. The engineer has lived in South Africa for two and a half years and is a project manager, responsible for the World Cup stadium in Durban.

"The stadiums will get completed," Oschatz says. "Certain stadiums will have problems meeting their anticipated completion dates exactly, but overall the stadiums will not be the problem."

In Durban the stadium is already about 75 percent finished, and the next tasks on the list are the VIP areas and the locker rooms. The stadium is scheduled to be handed over to FIFA later this year.

Security remains key issue

The biggest problem facing World Cup organizers is the high crime rate in South Africa. Although the rate has dropped in recent years, the number of people who meet a violent death every year in South Africa is well into the thousands. Statistics like that are enough to keep visitors from around the world away, which is a problem Danny Jordaan, the manager of the national organizing committee, confronts over and over again.

"'What about crime?' This is a question that was asked in Berlin, Beijing and New York, everywhere I went: crime," Jordaan says. "The question of crime is quite separate and distinct from security around events."

Almost 200,000 police officers are to provide the security during the World Cup for football fans throughout the country. They are to be supported by a completely new fleet if vehicles and helicopters, and a financial injection of 76 million euros from South Africa's Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel is to provide a new computer technology system for security.

Author: Ulrich Reimann/Matt Zuvela

Editor: Chuck Penfold