World cup 2010: South Africa set for historic event

South Africa is preparing for the start of the biggest football tournament on earth, the World Cup, which gets under way on Friday in Johannesburg, according to the BBC.
It is the 19th staging of the showpiece event and will be the first time it has taken place in the continent of Africa.
Johannesburg's 94,000-capacity Soccer City hosts the opening ceremony, with South Africa face Mexico.
Plans for ex-president Nelson Mandela to attend were thrown into doubt by his great-granddaughter's death on Friday.
Mandela, 91, was due to be present at Soccer City, but not for the entire opening game as his family are worried about the state of his health.
The World Cup kicks off with a 40-minute opening ceremony at Soccer City.
The global TV audience for the tournament will be made up of viewers in more than 215 countries and will run into hundreds of millions.
South Africa president Jacob Zuma and Archbishop Desmond Tutu are also expected to be at Soccer City, the newly refurbished stadium designed to look like a calabash, an African cooking pot.
The festivities began in earnest on Thursday, with Shakira among the artists at a vast pre-tournament concert in Soweto.
The Colombian pop star performed the official World Cup song Waka Waka and was joined by a cast of international stars, including the Black Eyed Peas and Alicia Keys, along with African stars Amadou & Mariam and Hugh Masekela.
Since it was chosen as the first African host of the World Cup in 2004, South Africa has spent about 40bn rand (£3.55bn) on stadiums, transport infrastructure and upgrading airports.
The tournament, which is made up of 32 nations, could add as much as 0.5% to the country's GDP in 2010 and will bring in an estimated 370,000 foreign visitors.
As well as the iconic Soccer City - the biggest stadium in Africa - nine other venues will stage World Cup matches across the country, including Ellis Park, which is also in Johannesburg.
Cape Town, Pretoria, Polokwane, Rustenburg, Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth, Durban and Nelspruit will host matches, too.
There are 64 games in total, with the final taking place at Soccer City on Sunday, 11 July.
There have been concerns about ticketing policy and security in the run-up to the tournament.
Fifa has come under fire for the way tickets have been distributed, with critics claiming its preferred method of making tickets available online excluded many locals who did not have an internet connection.
However, football's world governing body has made a number of tickets exclusively available to South Africans and announced on Wednesday that 97% of the 3.1m tickets had been sold, allaying fears of empty stadiums.
As for security, there have been concerns about the safety of fans, media and players traveling to South Africa.

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