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JOHANNESBURG - Tickets for the final and the semi-finals of the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa next year have sold out, the world football body FIFA announced on Thursday.

Tickets for the opening game between South Africa and a yet-to-be-decided opponent in Johannesburg on June 11 have also sold out, as have tickets for all World Cup games in the cities of Cape Town, Nelspruit and Pretoria, FIFA said.

The second phase of ticket sales for the month-long tournament kicked off on May 4 on a first-come-first-served basis.

FIFA said there had been "incredible demand for individual match tickets".

In total, since tickets first went on sale in February, some 655,000 tickets for individual games have been sold, FIFA's spokeswoman in South Africa, Delia Fischer, said.

Fans can also buy team-specific ticket series to follow the team of their choice.
If their chosen team gets knocked out, the fan automatically follows the winning team at each state - right up to the final for fans who buy a seven-game team-specific ticket.

Sales of the team-specific ticket series have been brisk, with the England, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Ireland and Netherlands series having already sold out, FIFA said in a statement.

Fans from those countries still have a chance to see their team in action by buying individual match tickets, although the match schedule will not be known until the final World Cup draw in December.

FIFA also pointed out that fans could also still try to obtain tickets for the opening match, semi-finals or final by buying a seven-game team-specific series to follow a country that has not sold out.

In less than three weeks, South Africa will host the Confederations Cup, which is held every four years in the World Cup host nation a year beforehand.

Brazil, the United States, Italy, Spain, Egypt, South Africa, New Zealand and Iraq will compete in the two-week event, which is seen as a test of South Africa's preparedness to host the World Cup.

Tickets are still available for several of those games, including the highly-anticipated Brazil-Italy encounter, FIFA said.

Labels: 2010, mbombela, nelspruit, world cup

SKUKUZA — Lounging peacefully on the terrace, watching the elephants, leopards and antelopes gather at the watering hole.

That's how hundreds of football fans will relax in South Africa's Kruger National Park on "soccer safaris", after taking in World Cup matches in the nearby city of Nelspruit.



With 100,000 people, Nelspruit is among the smaller of the host cities and doesn't have enough accommodation for the fans expected to arrive here in June 2010.
So organisers are tapping resources in the tourist magnet of Kruger game park, less than a two-hour drive away.

"Any person who comes so close to Kruger would definitely come to see the game. You cannot miss it if you're that close to it, especially coming from Europe or Asia," said Stephen Nel, a manager at the Berg-en-Dal rest camp.

About 1.3 million tourists each year visit the park, which is about half the size of the Netherlands and has a highly developed network to accommodate guests.

During the World Cup, the camps of Skukuza, Berg-en-Dal and Pretoriuskop will host nearly 2,000 fans in search of South Africa's "Big Five" - elephants, buffalo, leopard, lions and rhinos.

FIFA partner responsible for accommodation, Match, is offering packages that include lodging, transport and safaris, which could mean pre-dawn drives to catch the animals at sun-up, twilight hikes, or dinner in the bush.

To allow the guests to see the football matches, Kruger is reworking its rules. The park currently closes at 18h00, and some games at Nelspruit's Mbombela stadium will only kick off two hours later.



Armed rangers will escort the fans back to their lodges and tents, "to protect them from lions, elephants and other dangerous animals," according to South African National Parks.

"They'll probably change the opening times of the restaurants as most of our guests would be for the World Cup," Nel added.

He said that the camp had welcomed guests from the Rugby World Cup in 1995, but that was on a smaller scale that what organisers expect in 2010.

The World Cup will be the biggest event ever held in this rural province, with Nelspuit building a 46,000-seat stadium for the occasion.



"Initially, there was a shortage of accomodation," said FS Siboza, operations manager for the city.

But he said the new guesthouses have opened in the city, and two other towns are helping to ensure enough beds are available during the tournament, he said.
The city expects new hotels will be built, while some homeowners plan to leave on vacation and to rent out their homes to the tourists.

Organisers are even considering creating tented campsites for visitors, spread around a 200-kilometre (125-mile) radius, including in neighbouring Swaziland and Mozambique.

FIFA wants to ensure that 55,000 rooms are available across the country during the World Cup. Right now there are 34,000, making Kruger's model an appealing option that could be expanded to other national parks.

The only requirement for the "soccer safaris" is that guests can actually see the matches. At Berg-en-Dal, they will be housed in simple cottages built in 1985, without televisions.

The camp is thinking about setting up a TV in a conference room so the fans can watch games in other towns... if they find generators to keep the electricity running.

Labels: berg en dal, nelspruit, skukuza, world cup

Conservation authorities on Tuesday continued their search for lions that escaped from the Kruger National Park.

Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks agency spokesperson Jimmy Masombuka said they were searching for the two remaining beasts. Two others that escaped had since been killed.

"We are busy monitoring the situation and taking part in a joint search effort with community members and Kruger personnel."

Masombuka said many sightings by the public had proved, after further investigation, to be false alarms.

The lions seem still to be in in the vicinity of the town of Emdlankomo in the Nelspruit area, near the place where they left the park through a break in the fence on Friday.

Two have been killed - one was hit by a train on Saturday and the second was shot on Monday night after it was found eating a cow.

Masombuka said the agency received a tip-off about the whereabouts of the lion, surrounded the area and killed it.

He said they had to kill the animal. "Because it's tasted a cow, it's going to be a problem and a danger to the livestock," he said.

Masombuka said it seemed the lions were much more active at night than during the heat of the day.

The search was difficult, partly because the area was heavily wooded.

"They can smell you at a distance and they hide themselves very quickly," he said.

However, Masombuka said the agency would not rest until they had found the remaining lions. "We are not going to stop the search until we make sure that everybody is safe. However, we'd like to urge the community to work hand-in-glove with us", he said.

He urged members of the community to report sightings to the agency.

Authorities are also monitoring the park fence to see if the lions had not returned to the park.

Villagers living next to the Kruger may be to blame for the recent escape.

Masombuka said that villagers often remove some of the Park's fencing to either use the material or to sell it. Masombuka has issued a serious warning against such actions.

** UPDATE, 04/10 **

Separately and further north, two more cattle have been killed by lions at Mahlathi village, in Limpopo. This brings the number of cattle killed to 49 since last month. The lions escaped from the Kruger National Park. Park spokesperson, Raymond Travers says animals that have escaped are no longer their responsibility.

Meanwhile, the environmental affairs department in the province says it has sent rangers to assist in the hunt for lions and farmers can kill the animals. However, the spokesperson for the department Lehlohonolo Masoga says farmers will not be compensated for their loss. Lions have also been terrorizing communities in Mpumalanga in past weeks.

** UPDATE, 06/10 **

Rangers and communal farmers have snared and killed two lions at Mahlathi village outside Giyani in Limpopo. This brings to three the number of lions killed so far. The lions escaped from the northern side of the Kruger National Park at the beginning of last month. It is believed four lions escaped.

The lions are believed to have killed 49 cattle since last month. Environmental Affairs authorities have given permission to affected communities to kill the animals. Lions have also been terrorising communities in Mpumalanga in the past few weeks.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Affairs department in the province says it has sent rangers to assist in the hunt for lions and farmers can kill the animals.

Labels: escaped animals, lions, nelspruit

JOHANNESBURG- South Africa had exceeded its target revenue commitments for the 2010 Soccer World Cup by $500 million (R3.6 billion) and the excess was expected to reach $1 billion, Danny Jordaan, the chief executive of the 2010 local organising committee, said last week.

Revenue commitments had already reached $3.5 billion compared to the targeted $3 billion, Jordaan said at a meeting to review preparations for the World Cup.

"We may reach $4 billion given the indication of more commercial partners."

Companies have already invested up to $150 million in the event.

Jordaan said South Africa's business perspective was to secure all of its revenue for the next four years.

He said the greatest challenge facing the country in preparation for the World Cup was the provision of infrastructure.

In this year's budget, the government had allocated R17.4 billion to improve the efficiency of public transport and building of stadiums ahead of the tournament.

The other challenge was the scarcity of match tickets.

Jordaan said there would be about 3 million tickets available to the expected 350 000 tourists and fans in the entire country.

"If we are lucky, we [South Africans] can get 1 million tickets," he said.

Jordaan said the major problem with tickets was not price but availability. Therefore, fan parks were proposed around host stadiums in nine cities, in other African countries and abroad.

New build stadia include the Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit.



Some of the challenges included visitors' accommodation, transport and logistics.

Adam Brown, the organising committee's senior executive manager of match events, said the issues were based on capacity, as there was not enough accommodation for visitors.

"There are about 55,000 rooms required for the World Cup," Brown said. He said there were 25,000 rooms contracted from hotels, with 19,000 contracted back in 2003, when the World Cup bid was announced.

"We have also signed a memorandum of understanding with SANParks for the Kruger National Park to commit between 2,500 and 3,000 rooms from their lodges and bed and breakfast facilities" said Brown.

He said there were about 1,500 bed and breakfasts contracted across the country.

The majority of the rooms would come from hotels but they "are expecting about 35,000 rooms from hotels and the rest from lodges and B&Bs", he said.

Southern Sun's managing director, Helder Pereira, said the hotel had sold 74 percent of its 12 000 rooms to world football body Fifa for the World Cup. However, 2009 would be more demanding than 2010 for the South African hospitality industry.

"There will be huge accommodation requirements in 2009: the British Lions tour, the FIFA Confederations Cup as well as the elections."

Labels: 2010, development, nelspruit, sport, world cup

NELSPRUIT- Team Total's Etienne Lourens' and Andre Vermeulen's moment of glory in winning the SASOL Rally in Nelspruit in their Toyota RunX turned into a nightmare when they inadvertently fell foul of the Class S2000 rules.



During a routine, post-rally inspection of the class-wining cars, it was found that Lourens’ car did not comply with the rules in that his rev limiter was set at 8800 rpm instead of the permitted 8500 rpm. The name of the manufacturer on the brake calipers had also not been machined off as required by the regulations.

While the extent of the advantage gained from these oversights, if any, is open to debate, Lourens had no prior knowledge of the infringements as his car is prepared by Toyota Motorsport, together with the Castrol Toyota cars of Serge Damseaux and Johnny Gemmell.

As a result of the infringements Lourens was penalised by 10 minutes, dropping him from first place to ninth overall.

Andries van der Walt, Motorsport Manager of Team Total, said after the event that while the team was understandably disappointed, Lourens and Vermeulen had put in a brilliant drive on the event to follow on from a podium finish in the Cape Rally, leaving the team more determined than ever to be successful in the 2007 season.

Class wins in Class N4, by Fernando Rueda and Gerhard Snyman, and Class N3 by the Houghton brothers, further underlined the team’s competitiveness, said van der Walt.

Labels: nelspruit, sport

JOHANNESBURG- A South African and a Mozambican company are to construct a R4-billion liquid petroleum pipeline between the two countries, reducing South Africa's reliance on Durban harbour and offering some hope that inland fuel prices might drop in the long term.

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has issued a licence to build the pipeline from Maputo to Kendal in Gauteng, via Nelspruit, to Petroline RSA. They will build the pipeline jointly with Petroline SARL of Mozambique.

This pipeline follows the construction of 865km of pipeline to supply natural gas from Mozambique to Mpumalanga and Gauteng, successfully completed in 2004.



Nersa agreed with the option to build the new pipeline from Mozambique, instead of a larger 24-inch line from Durban to Johannesburg, because it would be cheaper. Detailed design and environmental impact assessments for the project, already approved by the two countries, are currently under way.

According to Petroline RSA director Pinky Moabi, construction will start at the end of the year and the pipeline should be fully operational by the end of 2009.

"We hope that fuel prices will drop in Mpumalanga and some parts of Gauteng, because we will be getting fuel directly from the coast of Mozambique, and we know that fuel prices are lower on the coast than in inland cities," Moabi said.

According to Petroline, the pipeline will carry 3.5-billion litres of fuel a year and supply 25% of the fuel demand in Mpumalanga and Gauteng.

The pipeline will run from an existing coastal fuel storage depot at Matola Harbour in Mozambique to Nelspruit, where an inland depot will be built, complete with rail and road loading infrastructure.

ABSA economist Chris Hart said that the pipeline's effect on prices would in all probability be felt in the long term. "The pipeline is unlikely to have an effect on fuel prices in the shorter term as the consumers would have to pay for it," Hart said. However, the pipeline "might cut costs to a certain extent in the main market in the long run.

"Currently, about two thirds of South Africa's fuel is imported," Hart added. "There is refinery capacity shortage in the country."

The licence to build the pipeline went to Petroline ahead of state-owned Petronet, which Nersa spokesperson Nhlanhla Cebekhulu put down to Petroline's strong empowerment credentials.

Separately, it emerged that another pipeline is under consideration from Phalaborwa to Maputo.

Palabora Mining, the country's biggest copper producer, may develop a steel plant with the Mozambican government in Maputo, a project similar to that investigated by Enron in 1997.

The project under consideration includes an expansion of the port and a pipeline to transport magnetite, a type of iron ore, from Palabora's mine in South Africa, the chief financial officer Charles Asubonten said on Friday.

Palabora produces the steel making ingredient, magnetite, as a by-product of copper mining. Palabora, controlled by Anglo American and Rio Tinto, plans to raise magnetite production further after a 27 percent jump in output last year. Iron ore prices rose 19.5 percent last year and will increase 9.5 percent to a record this year, their fifth consecutive annual gain.

Shares of Palabora rose R2.68 to close at R71.68 on Friday. The shares more than doubled in price over the past 12 months. Palabora had between 240 million and 270 million tons of magnetite, Asubonten said.

That would be sufficient to support a steel plant at the port in Mozambique's capital. He declined to comment on the cost of the project, the size of the steel plant being studied and the steel makers that Palabora has talked with.

Enron, which filed the biggest-ever corporate bankruptcy at the time in 2001, and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) had planned to develop a steel project in Maputo port nine years ago.

The mill, costing $2 billion (R14 billion), would have produced 4 million tons of steel annually, using Palabora's magnetite and gas from Mozambique's Pande field, which is now operated by Sasol.

Enron's bankruptcy in 2001 ended plans to build the plant, while the IDC quit the project two years earlier.

"The original project was going to be a steel slab plant," Abrie Audie of the South African Iron and Steel Institute said on Friday. "Both Highveld Steel and Vanadium and Mittal Steel are expanding, so you have to ask if there is a market."

The pipeline from Phalaborwa to Maputo would have been about 300km long, according to a 1997, Mozambique News Agency report, citing then transport minster Mac Maharaj. Magnetite could be transported through the pipeline in slurry form, Asubonten said.

Palabora's magnetite exports rose about 30 percent in the past year and will increase again this year, according to the annual report. Asubonten declined to disclose volumes.

Labels: development, mozambique, nelspruit

NELSPRUIT– The first chartered planeload of European tourists could be touching down at Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport (KMIA) during this year.

At least that is the hope of airport manager Sisa Tanda. Negotiations are in an advanced stage with a major UK charter company to fly once a week to KMIA.



Gaining the charter airline is one of three key aims on Tanda’s business wish list for 2007. The others include enticing a low-cost airline into a long-term arrangement and increasing the amount of cargo traffic.

After doubling profitability in the past year, the seasoned Tanda is working hard to coordinate consultants, agents, route developers and operators to further the master plan for the future.

Most of the income is derived from people travelling through and using the services at the airport.

“Our short-term objectives include the development of the charter airlines business,” Tanda said. “By the end of this year we expect to have weekly charter flights and once one operator starts, it will have a snowball effect.

“We have learned through studies that the two main places in South Africa that foreign tourists want to visit during a 14-day stay, are Cape Town and the Kruger National Park. We want to make their travel arrangements as comfortable and direct as we can.

“We are slightly restricted by national requirements and bilateral aviation arrangements which means using Johannesburg’s OR Tambo Airport as the point of entry,” said Tanda. He is also cognisant of the desire of domestic fliers to have more choice of internal operators– especially a no-frills, low-price airline.

The third arrow in Tanda’s quiver is reserved for the cargo market, which he sees as a key economic growth factor for the region’s future and long-term development of the airport.

Labels: airlines, mpumalanga, nelspruit, southern kruger, travel

NELSPRUIT- Construction on the 43,500 seater Mbombela stadium in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga, has begun. The stadium is being built for the 2010 Soccer World Cup, and will host Group qualifying rounds of the tournament.

Earthworks have started at the stadium site, with the R920-million sports facility set to be ready for use by early 2009.



Construction companies Bouygues TP, a French contractor, and South African-based Basil Read, won the contract to build the stadium.

Speaking at the sod-turning ceremony in Nelspruit, Premier Thabang Makwetla said that the Mbombela stadium would become one of the finest sports and entertainment venues in the Mpumalanga province.

“The arrival of the Mbombela stadium will create major job opportunities for the people of Mbombela and other areas of our province. The hosting of major sports and entertainment events will contribute to major economic impact on the provincial tourism statistics,” the Premier said.

Executive Mayor Justice Nsibande said that the Mbombela stadium would be the perfect platform through which rising sports talent from Mbombela could be developed.



The multi-purpose stadium, which is expected to host key soccer and rugby matches, will be equipped with conference facilities as well.

The pylons of the stadium will be giraffe-like in style and the interior décor of the complex will include trees, which are characteristic of the Mpumalanga province.

The presidential suite will be able to host 500 dignitaries with 10 VIP suites.

The media centre will be able to accommodate 620 journalists.

Labels: nelspruit, world cup