BuaNews (Tshwane)
Themba Gadebe
8 August 2007
Soweto — The 2010 FIFA World Cup host cities affected by the name change process are to use both the old and new names in 2010.
The 2010 FIFA World Cup Local Organising Committee (LOC) and FIFA on Tuesday agreed that both names will be used as part of government's continuing transformation agenda.
The affected cities include Bloemfontein (changed to Mangaung), Pretoria (now Tshwane) and Port Elizabeth (became Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality).
"This positive step allows for the effective global promotion of the host cities while at the same time providing a good opportunity to engage visitors to the country on transformation within the country," LOC's chairman Irvin Khoza said.
Dr Khoza indicated that the name change process proved to be a challenge on issues relating to signage and road maps but commended FIFA for accepting the new changes.
"FIFA came with a reasonable solution to accept that we can use the new names and keep the old ones for the purpose of international marketing. FIFA has been very helpful with our dilemma and in understanding issues," he said.
This, he added, meant that the World Cup tickets would also bear the double-barrel names.
The General Secretary of FIFA, Jerome Valcke showered the LOC with praises for the "good" progress in the construction of stadiums.
"Everything is moving, stadiums are in the right way and there's good cooperation between Zurich and Johannesburg," he said.
He also disclosed however, that two stadiums, Cape Town's Green Point and Port Elizabeth's were behind on schedule by a "few weeks".
The LOC and FIFA emphasised the importance to continue to monitor the progress to ensure that deadline of 31 October 2009 for the completion of construction is met.
FIFA on Tuesday also signed up Telkom South Africa as a National Supporter of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in the key category of fixed-line telecommunications.
This partnership was inked by FIFA General Secretary Jerome Valcke and Telkom SA acting Chief Executive Officer Reuben September at a signing ceremony, making Telkom the second South African company to be the National Sponsor of the 2010 world cup.
Telkom SA joins First National Bank as the second company in this sponsorship class, thus earning local marketing rights to the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the FIFA Confederations Cup, which will be held in South Africa in 2009.
The $36 million deal makes Telkom SA the main partner for fixed-line network infrastructure provisioning, offering significant value-in-kind services to support the broadcast of the event outside South Africa to a staggering audience of more than 26 billion people in the world.
Telkom SA will enable the interconnection of event venues such as the ten stadiums, broadcast compounds, media centres, the international broadcast centre (IBC) and the FIFA and LOC headquarters.
"A huge volume of mission critical voice and data traffic will move over the FIFA event network during the FIFA Confederations Cup and the FIFA World Cup.
"This requires a reliable partner to develop the fixed-line components of the necessary telecommunications infrastructure," said the Mr Valcke.
This deal, he said not only highlights FIFA's confidence in South Africa as the host nation but also shows that the country's business community believes in the incredibly positive impact the event will have on the country.
"Telkom views its involvement as a National Supporter of the 2010 FIFA World Cup as an opportunity to team up with the sporting world's greatest showpiece.
"We are extremely proud to showcase Telkom's world-class infrastructure which will support the broadcast of the event to a global audience of over 26 billion people.
"Telkom is confident that our involvement in 2010 will contribute towards making this the most spectacular FIFA World Cup tournament yet," said Telkom's acting CEO September.
Minister in the Office of the Presidency Essop Pahad said government welcomed the agreement with Telkom and was encouraged by Telkom's commitment to the development of information and communication technology in this country.
LOC's Chief Executive Officer Danny Jordaan also welcomed the partnership saying: "The organising committee is pleased that yet another South African company has shown such tremendous support for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
"We look forward to working with Telkom and the other partners, sponsors and supporters in ensuring that the tournament in 2010 is a world-class event and the most successful FIFA World Cup ever.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2007 BuaNews. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
