JOHANNESBURG, Sept 4: South African organisers of the 2010 World Cup said on Thursday they were upbeat about FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s visit next week to “showcase” the progress made in preparing for the event.

Blatter will on September 14 begin a four-day visit to South Africa, during which he would visit World Cup facilities in the major cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town, World Cup Local Organising Committee (LOC) chief Danny Jordaan said.

“We have made tremendous progress and we hope to showcase this progress to him during his September 14 to 17 visit. We also hope he will be very impressed with the lot of progess we have made,” Jordaan told journalists.

South Africa was jolted in July after a Spanish newpaper reported that the football governing body was in talks with authorities in Brazil about staging the 2010 World Cup there should the African nation be unable to host the event.

“We are confident that we can host the competition. Long before 2010 all the (10) stadia for the competition will be ready,” Jordaan said, adding that an expected change in government next year will not affect the game hosting.

General elections are scheduled to be held next year in South Africa.

Approximately three million tickets will be sold for the 2010 World Cup in which 32 teams will participate, the LOC head of legal and tickets department, Leslie Sedibe, said.

A total of 120,000 complimentary tickets will be handed out to FIFA and LOC officials as well as “builders” of the stadia, he said.

The World Cup, will be preceded next year by the FIFA Confederations Cup, to be staged in four stadia across South Africa from June 14 to 28 next year.

The draw for the Confederations Cup, will be made on November 22 this year and the tickets will be put on sale five days later, he also said.

An estimated three million people will be at the stadia for the World Cup’s 64 matches while 30 billion people across the globe will watch the matches on the television, organisers said.

South Africa, which budgetted 30 billion rand (3.8 billion dlllars/ 2.6 billion euros) to host the World Cup, has recently requested from government a supplementary budget of three billion rand to meet the rising cost of materials, Jordaan said.

“We have engaged government on a 10 percent increase on the World Cup budget. The increase is due to the effects of global economy and rising costs on our budget, including the rising cost of diesel” he stated.

—AFP