The long and often tortuous road to sport’s greatest event will be mapped out
on the eastern seaboard of South Africa this afternoon, and if we have to
wait a little longer than anticipated to find out where England’s starting
position is going to be, the same individuals who have been apologising
since Wednesday night can be blamed again. Missing out on one tournament,
Euro 2008, has meant England, no longer a top seed, have made it harder to
chart their route to the next, the 2010 World Cup.
England are conspicuous already in Durban as international football’s blazers
and managers gather for this afternoon’s draw for the qualifying rounds of
the World Cup. The FA delegation have travelled without a national head
coach and will arrive at the city’s convention centre today unhappy with
where they have been told to sit. England are not among the elite in the
Europe section of the draw, their record over recent internationals now
comparing unfavourably with the likes of Greece and, of course, Croatia. It
means England are not protected from facing the likes of Italy, France or
Germany in a group system that guarantees qualification only to the team
finishing at the top of the table.
A playoff will sort out eight of the nine second-placed finishers that, if it
goes according to the seedings, would include both England and Scotland.
They can’t meet one another but could face either the Republic of Ireland or
Northern Ireland, who are both seeded third, or Wales, who are in the fourth
seeds. A mean scenario for England or the Scots would bring them home and
away matches against the defending world champions, Italy, as well as the
quarter-finalists from 2006, Ukraine; those regular England-confounders
Macedonia, and Georgia and Estonia. A more gentle drawing of the balls from
the pots might end with journeys to Belgium, Lithuania, Austria and San
Marino.
Of greater global interest in Durban is how the final few miles of the road to
the 2010 World Cup final will look in probably the most exotic destination
in the event’s history. Certainly, the expected half-million visitors who
come here to watch the 32 finalists will spend a good deal of time on South
Africa’s roads. Transport would be high among the areas of current Fifa
scrutiny of the host’s work in preparation for the World Cup. Much of the
infrastructure, like Durban’s compact airport - another, larger airport is
due by 2010 - looks ill-equipped for the invasion. Johannesburg’s three-lane
highways already struggle with the swelling traffic of a financial capital
whose economic boom is putting more and more cars where public buses run a
threadbare service. “We need to double our number of buses for the World
Cup,” admits the country’s minister for transport, Jeff Radebe, “and we
will. I hope one of the lasting legacies for this country of 2010 is a good
public transport system.”
“Legacy” is the chorus line from everybody involved in the local organisation
of the World Cup and it informed Fifa’s decision to commit their prize
tournament, and the benefits that emerge from it, to Africa. The upgrading
of parts of South Africa’s infrastructure will undoubtedly improve the lives
of South Africans, the vast majority of whom suffered systematic deprivation
under apartheid. At the same time, the contrast between the expensive
outfitting going on and some of the miserable living conditions of many
black South Africans can seem striking. Nowhere more so than in Cape Town,
where a 65,000 capacity arena is rapidly extending its concrete pillars up
on prime land between the ocean and the dramatic backdrop of Table Mountain.
Fifa did not demand Cape Town build the Greenpoint stadium, having deemed the
well-located Newlands stadium, which hosted matches at the 1995 rugby World
Cup, as a worthy site, with its 49,000 seats, to host matches up until the
semi-final stage. For a semi, however, greater capacity is required, so Cape
Town, the country’s major tourist destination, committed R500m (£36m) of
public funds to a new stadium so the city would be involved in the
tournament until its final week.
But the future of Greenpoint after July 2010 is unclear. The city’s two major
football clubs, Ajax Cape Town and Santos, draw fewer than 10,000 to most
home matches. Ajax are already building their own stadium closer to the
townships, and Santos’s ground has just been modernised; the likelihood is
that rugby spectators – who overwhelmingly tend to come from the communities
privileged under apartheid – will most often enjoy the benefits of a
state-of-the-art Greenpoint, a curious and costly legacy for a city where
hundreds of thousands live in shacks.
The construction of stadiums is creating thousands of jobs on sites where work
is progressing fast and within the deadline for completion, the last quarter
of 2009. Many of the workers on those sites, however, are unhappy with their
conditions, and strikes at two sites came to an end last week, with
agreements reached on pay increases for the labourers at Durban’s new arena
and the stadium being built in the more remote city of Nelspruit, close to
South Africa’s eastern border with Mozambique.
Were England’s journey to 2010 to include a fixture in Nelspruit, it could
certainly seem a long road. Hotel capacity in this city currently stands at
a fraction of the 46,000 seats in the Mbombela stadium, although about an
hour’s drive away lies a game park the size of Wales. This World Cup is
being staged in a country with perhaps the greatest breadth of tourist
attractions ever. It is not one the Three Lions or their followers should be
missing out on.
South Africa and Fifa certainly want England there, not simply to honour
tradition but because they bring supporters in big numbers. Those fans will
be expected to behave. “For public order offences, we will be able to
detain and process people through the courts and if necessary obtain
deportation orders within 24 hours,” says Andre Pruis, South Africa’s deputy
police commissioner. Pruis has radical ideas on how to prevent crimes
against visitors in 2010, including proposals to establish demarcated zones
where offences such as prostitution and drinking alcohol in public might be
allowed. “It would be for operational purposes,” he explains, “to
prevent people moving into areas where they may put themselves at risk from
criminals.”
Crime does cast a shadow over South Africa but Pruis is encouraged that in the
course of hosting dozens of major events - including rugby and cricket world
cups - almost no visitors have been victims of it. His force will devote
more than 30,000 officers to World Cup duty for a three-month period up to
and including the tournament, and the state’s dramatic year-on-year increase
in police numbers will mean the national force is close to 200,000 by 2010.
As for the sport-specific crime of ticket touting, yesterday Fifa and the
local organising committee were in discussions about plans to make a tranche
of match-tickets available from as little as £12 only to South Africa
residents. There is anxiety this could create a huge illegal resale market.
But there is equal anxiety that in a country where football is a consuming
passion of poorer South Africans, they should have a chance to join in,
rather than watch the World Cup charabanc ride by, waving from a distance as
it passes them by.
England hope for pot of gold Draw format
There will be 53 European nations in today’s draw, divided into six pots each
of nine seeds (eight in pot F). Teams will be drawn from each pot to produce
eight groups of six teams (one from each pot) and one group of five (one each
from Pots A to E). The nine group winners qualify for the finals. The eight
best runners-up pair off for two-legged playoffs to fi nd the other four
qualifi ers. Seedings are based on Fifa rankings, England dropping out of the
top-seeded nations following their defeat by Croatia, to join Scotland in
Pot B. Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are in Pot C and Wales
in Pot D
First seeds - Italy Spain Germany Czech Rep France Portugal Holland
Croatia Greece
Second seeds - England Romania Scotland Turkey Bulgaria Russia
Poland Sweden Israel
Third seeds - Norway Ukraine Serbia Denmark N Ireland Rep Ireland
Finland Switzerland Belgium
Fourth seeds - Slovakia Bosnia-Herz Hungary Moldova Wales
Macedonia Belarus Lithuania Cyprus
Fifth seeds - Georgia Albania Slovenia Latvia Iceland Armenia Austria
Kazakhstan Azerbaijan
Sixth seeds - Liechtenstein Estonia Malta Luxembourg Montenegro Andorra
Faroes San Marino
The final 32 teams to compete in 2010 will come from:
Europe 13 places
Africa 6 places (including hosts South Africa)
South America 4 places plus playoff v Concacaf
Concacaf 3 places plus playoff v South America Asia 4 places
plus playoff v Oceania
Oceania playoff v Asia
Old rivals
England’s most common opponents in qualifying for leading tournaments are; 7
Poland, 5 Turkey, 4 Northern Ireland, 3 Finland, Greece, Luxembourg
Total strangers
Teams England have yet to meet in competition or friendly incude Serbia,
Bosnia-Herzogovina, Belarus, Lithuania, Slovenia, Latvia, Armenia,
Kazakhstan, Montenegro, Faroe Islands
TV details:
Today’s draw, hosted by Fifa chief Sepp Blatter starts at 3pm and will be
shown on Sky Sports News, BBC Interactive and as part of ITV1’s sports
coverage. The Asia draw is first, followed by Concacaf, Europe and Africa.
The draws for South America and Oceania have already taken place. The
European draw is scheduled for approximately 4pm
Only South Africa, as hosts, qualify automatically. After the 2002 tournament,
Fifa ended the privilege of allowing the defending champions into the fi nals
of the next tournament so 2006 winners Italy must go through the qualifying
process
