2010 World Cup Venues and Travel

[JJ Mindset]

http://www.news24.com/News24/Sport/Soccer/0,,2-9-840_1876189,00.html
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/sports.aspx?ID=BD4A150589

In brief:

Ten grounds in total. Soccer City and Ellis Park to be renovated and used, as expected, along with the Loftus Versfeld, in Pretoria. However, Cape Town and Durban will use new grounds. Port Elizabeth, Mpumalanga, Polokwane, Rustenburg and Bloemfontein will also host matches.

[mfw13]

This may be premature to ask, but are their any South African's around who can speak as to how easy it is going to be to get around from city to city. From what I know, South Africa does not have any high speed rail connections as of yet, which means that supporters are going to have to fly from city to city.

Or are all the matches for a given group going to be staged in one general location so fans do not have to travel extensively?

[ursula]

Decisions on if all a group's games are to played in one city haven't been made yet.

There won't be high speed rail. There are good air connections and the roads are good between the cities that are relatively close together.

[mfw13]

Ursula....are you a Seattleite like myself?

I've been doing a little research on getting around South Africa, and it doesn't look too promising. One of the great things about the France, Korea/Japan, and Germany world cups has been the excellent transportation. In all three countries, the longest train trip between venues was about 5 hours.

South Africa, in contrast, does not seem to have the transportation infrastructure to make it easy for people to get from one venue to another.
Aside from the three venues in and around Johannesburg, all of the other venues are at least 7 hours by train (even though only three are more than 400km from Johannesburg), and Rustenberg has no train service at all that I can tell. Getting from one city to another is going to be very very difficult to do in a timely fashion unless you want to spend all your time in airports.

[ursula]

Ursula....are you a Seattleite like myself?

I've been doing a little research on getting around South Africa, and it doesn't look too promising. One of the great things about the France, Korea/Japan, and Germany world cups has been the excellent transportation. In all three countries, the longest train trip between venues was about 5 hours.

South Africa, in contrast, does not seem to have the transportation infrastructure to make it easy for people to get from one venue to another.
Aside from the three venues in and around Johannesburg, all of the other venues are at least 7 hours by train (even though only three are more than 400km from Johannesburg), and Rustenberg has no train service at all that I can tell. Getting from one city to another is going to be very very difficult to do in a timely fashion unless you want to spend all your time in airports.

Hi! I'm a Portlander. I love visiting your city though.

It's always surprising how big South Africa is, particularly the distances from the rest of the country to Cape Town:

Cape Town to Jo'burg is 1407 KM, about the same as Seattle to San Francisco (1306 Km) or Boston-Chicago (1613 Km). Cape Town to Durban is even further (1532 Km). Even closer distances have some distance between them. Port Elizabeth (PE) is 632 Km from Blomfontein while LA to SF is 639Km.

So, yeah, it would be nice if South Africa had Euro-style trains and close distances. But it doesn't. Think of it more like getting around the western (or eastern) US. I mean you don't use the train to get to Salt Lake from Seattle, right? Depending on where the games you have tickets for are you will either 1) drive and/or 2) plane.

Cheer up: most of the airports in SA are smaller then in the US- very easy to get in and out of, much smaller than Sea-tac. Jo'burg is the BIG exception.

And driving in SA between cities is fun fun fun (once you get used to driving on the left) especially if you are doing anything else besides going to soccer games- and if you are only doing that in SA then you are missing the parks which are out of this world. In fact schedule extra time for sightseeing.

[Andy TAUS]

Isn't South Africa full of crime?Nah, that's Bolton. :p

[ursula]

Mod's note: I binned the posts that don't talk about the venues in South Africa and topics related to them. Except for the post that's quoted by Andy Taus due to his reply.

[JJ Mindset]

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sports/html/20060317T210000-0500_100809_OBS_FIFA_NAMES____VENUES_FOR______WORLD_CUP_IN_SOUTH_AFRICA.asp
ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) - FIFA yesterday named the 10 stadiums that will host matches at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

South Africa's World Cup Local Organising Committee (LOC) said last week that a 68,000-capacity all-weather arena - Green Point stadium - would be built in Cape Town; and that the 2010 World Cup final would be held at a refurbished FNB Stadium in Johannesburg.

The rest of the stadiums are: Ellis Park, Johannesburg; Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria; Royal Bafokeng, Rustenburg; Vodacom Park, Bloemfontein; Kings Park, Durban; Peter Mokaba, Polokwane; Mbombela, Nelspruit; and Nelson Mandela Metro, Port Elizabeth.

http://www.sportinglife.com/football/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=soccer/06/03/17/SOCCER_World_Cup_2010.html
http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=282425&ssid=90&sid=SPO
http://foxsports.news.com.au/story/0,8659,18509822-23215,00.html

[essie_majedi]

im really excitided that im going in 2010