JOHANNESBURG -- The World Cup total stadium attendance will pass 3 million at the Germany-Spain semifinal match on Wednesday. FIFA says 2,997,000 people have attended the first 61 matches, for an average of 49,134 with three games left to play. The figures place South Africa third in both categories, behind the 1994 tournament in the United States and the 2006 edition in Germany. South Africa had a total capacity of 3.42 million but few matches have totally filled stadiums. I do not believe this stat for one second. I watched nearly every match as I have done for the past 4 world cups and I have never seen so many empty stadia in what we perceive to be big matches let alone the lesser desired ones. I think it was the Brazil v Netherlands QF match that I was amazed at seeing many open seats for such a big match and a QF. Than again, I suppose it could be true....
MLS Accounting dept did the numbers. Tickets sold and distributed but unused. Ticket agencies and brokers bought a bunch, but my hunch is that they didn't have many takers compared to what they should have and used to have. What would be telling is if the ticket windows on matchdays had extras. FIFA can't expect to sell tickets to matches held in 3rd world Sally Struthers countries on the edge of the earth and sell tix. First of all, the locals cannot afford them. Secondly, the travel cost is prohibitive. However, I'll also venture that the real money, the lion's share, came from sponsorships, not ticket sales.
At least according to FIFAs own numbers, the matches that were packed were in the big stadiums in Johannesburg, Durban and Capetown, while the small stadia in the province hardly ever came close to capacity, which explains the difference between what you feel and the actual numbers to an extent -2 matches with 30k in a 40k stadium + a packed 80k seater adds up to above 90% usage, but you'll remember a lot of empty seats from the first match. That being said, FIFA has the Netherlands-Brazil match almost at full attendance (40k in a 42k seater). Btw, as far as I know, tickets sold and unused do not count for FIFAs numbers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jun/13/world-cup-stadiums-empty-seats "There were 10,955 empty seats at a stadium with a usable capacity of 42,486. There were also large numbers of empty seats at today's match between Algeria and Slovenia in Polokwane, where the official attendance of 30,325 was well down on the World Cup capacity of 41,733. Earlier in the day, a Fifa spokesman said there were only 700 tickets left for the match, indicating that again many of those who had tickets were unable or unwilling to turn up. The game between Serbia and Ghana at the 42,858-capacity Lotus Versfeld stadium in Pretoria was reported as a sell-out but the actual attendance was 38,833." I'm pretty sure the Bundesliga also counts attendance, not sold tickets. No idea about other leagues.
The R/16 match in Port Elizabeth, Uruguay-South Korea had barely 20,000 people attending with an announced attendance of over 30,000. In Cape Town, they had the cheek to announce an attendance of exactly 64,100 for both Uruguay vs France and England vs Algeria. Then for the far more crowded R/16 Spain vs Portugal, the announced attendance was lower! Furthermore, we will never know how many of the tickets used were "complimentary" and should nor be counted either towards "paid attendance" the accepted norm. They will really have a problem filling the stadium for the 3/4 Place match in P.E.. Neither Germany nor Uruguay have big travelling contingents this year and the local market is very thin, with barely 10,000 locals willing to stump up R 140 for a competitive group phase match. To think that they will pay R 525 is nuts.
Hopefully they would have gameday discounts to fill those empty seats. But at least this World Cup has been the most watch around the world. Maybe thats because no one wanted to go to South Africa.
http://www.sport24.co.za/Soccer/WorldCup/NationalNews/State-spent-R130m-on-tickets-20100707 State spent R130m on tickets Cape Town - State transport entities spent R19m on World Cup tickets, Transport Minister Sibusisu Ndebele said on Wednesday. This brings the total spent on match seats by the government and parastatals to nearly R130m. Ndebele said the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) paid R10.8m for 4 570 tickets. It had originally hoped to acquire more than 50 000 tickets to sell as part of rail-travel packages, but Fifa could not confirm a booking of that size. According to Ndebele, the Airports Company of South Africa spent R4.67m on 170 tickets for six World Cup soccer matches, including the opening match and Sunday's final. The South African Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa) set aside R2.2m for tickets for stakeholders and high-performing staff members, and the Air Traffic and Navigation Services spent R1.4m on tickets to invite stakeholders like Namibia's permanent transport secretary to matches. Ndebele also revealed that struggling entities purchased tickets for last year's Fifa Confederations Cup. The Road Accident Fund, which said its backlog of R40bn in claims would have to be financed by a cash injection from government, paid R1.8m for 600 tickets for the 2009 tournament. Waste money The government warned departments before the tournament not to waste money on tickets. Revelations of their purchases have sparked an outcry. "It is particularly an issue of concern that Prasa would see fit to spend such an en exorbitant amount on entertainment purposes when, by its own admission, it recently revealed that it needs R100bn in the next 10 to 12 years to prevent South Africa’s passenger rail services from collapsing," the Democratic Alliance said on Wednesday. Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan warned that the purchases amounted to irregular expenditure in terms of the Public Finance Management Act and that accounting officers could be held personally liable and charged with financial misconduct. Most of the money, some R80m, was spent by semi-state entities, some of which have in recent years needed massive bailouts from the state to survive. Eskom, which has been embroiled in a wage dispute that nearly resulted in a strike in the last week of the tournament, spent R12m on World Cup tickets. South African Airways spent R23m on match seats, just two months before getting a R1.6bn bail-out from the government. The SABC splurged R3.3m on tickets. PetroSA and Transnet jointly spent R24m and the Free State provincial government and the Mangaung municipality spent almost R22m on tickets. Selfish National departments that bought tickets included trade and industry, which spent R4.7m. Congress of SA Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi has criticised the purchases as a "most selfish way of spending money" while workers were asked to temper their wage demands in the national interest. The chairman of Parliament's standing committee on public accounts, Themba Godi, has vowed to hold to account departments that flaunted the finance management act. However, Planning Minister Trevor Manuel has pleaded for understanding for parastatals that bought tickets, saying some were business entities that needed to make profits by socialising with clients. "We mustn’t hyperventilate when the national airline takes tour operators and builds a relationship with them, because that is building the business. "When you take a local authority or a government department and they spend taxpayers’ money on themselves it’s a different issue."
In the end, it was the South African Government that wanted something they were not ready for. By that I mean, financially. They may have pulled this off in their eyes and what they have shown to the world collectivly with FIFA but the reality still remains the South African people, the Government, and the people running South Africa were not ready for something that produces false financial results in the wake of having to meet FIFA standards in Stadia, Infastructure, and Transportation. I think it's great for the country to benefit from these much needed upgrades but they are only much needed if the country's people use them in the first place. SA is still a very poor country and is not sustainable by the majority of its people. There is too much ignorance in running this country and it solely lies on behalf of the country's people who wish so much to see their own culture running it. There may be some intelligent and business savvy people there but far and few between. I understand the country's history had dictated much of this thought but it has not been very beneficial to the people. We are not blind or ignorant as TV images have proven what we are seeing. Stadiums have not been full by any means with exception to Jo'berg, CT, and Durban but even those have seen empty seats unlike that of previous world cups. I have personally been to the past Four cups and seen many matches. This is the worse I've seen in modern day World Cup's. By the way, my TS5-Cat 1 tickets (2) resold thru FIFA at the end of May. I still haven't seen my refund....I wonder when they will give us back our money? What is taking so long to do so? I hate FIFA!!! but love the WC. It's a toss up I suppose...
Actually, I wonder what's going to happen to those stadia after the cup is over. Unless they lower the ticket prices to rock bottom, they'll never get over 10% capacity. In either event, just paying the costs for maintenance is going to be tough.
I think one as to be careful about assessing crowds at the start of the match (or before anthems) - that's the period where the TV coverage focuses on the crowds. After attending 19 matches I noticed that the matches reached full capacity after about 20 minutes in the 1st half. Not sure why there were so many coming in late. I have no reason to doubt the FIFA stats. Some games were disappointingly attended - but these were mostly in small towns or for low-profile matches. Having said that, these smaller matches still had better attenance records than Korea/Japan 2002. By my calculation, overall tournament attendance was at 93% average. Not bad really for a long-haul destination - but why the discrpeancy between sales (97%) and final attendance? That's what needs explaining. Anyway, for what it's worth my stadium experiences have been great. I'm pretty proud of the way this tournament has gone.
Ellis Park (Jo'burg), Pretoria and Bloemfontein will have Rugby Super 14/15 teams as tenants, who get around 20k per match attendance (Pretoria a bit more, Jo'burg a bit less). Football clubs in Johannesburg and Bloemfontein also have a decent attendance - obviously not at world cup ticket prizes, but it will be enough to run the stadiums. Soccer City will be home to the nt and some other high profile matches and events, they'll get by. Cape Town and Durban will have a problem, the local Rugby clubs with the big attendances will stay in their old stadia, because of long term lease contracts (Durban) or simply because it's better situated (Cape Town) and the football teams that will use the grounds don't really have high attendances. Port Elizabeth will have some hope because it's by far the best stadium in a rather large city, but they missed out on getting the 15th Super 15 club, they'll have to get by largely on events. AFAIK, the rest (Rustenburg, Nelspruit, Polokwane) were pretty much white elefants from the start.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_FIFA_World_Cup_statistics#Stadiums The SA 2010 Stadiums were 93% full overall with Cape Town, Durban & Soccer City having around 99% attendance each. Korea Japan 2002 had a lower average & total attendance with many games having thousands of empty seats including R16 match Germany vs Paraguay.
Don't be fouled by FIFA's and SAcommittee's numbers. I saw on TV alone too many empty seats and now that my friend it back home, who attended 12 matches, claims the same. I was in Korea and Japan as well as Germany, France and the USA and saw plenty of matches, both small and large and the stadia did not have very many empty seats if any in most matches I attended. FIFA and the SAC are going to fudge everything they can in order to call this cup a success, in which many ways it was and in more ways it was not. They want to blame it on everything but where the real blame lies; picking the wrong time to have SA host the cup. I stand by my comments, having attended last years Confed. Politics is what decided on where the WC went rather than what was best for the people of the country, the supporters of the qualified countires, and the teams playing. They don't want politics involved in Football and yet, they let it be for this moment. How is that "Fair Play" as FIFA loves to tout?
Counting attendance number from TV (probably @ kick off) is certainly more reliable than FIFA's numbers. Did FIFA and the OC in Korea Japan doctor figures too? Did your friend's 12 matches take place @ Soccer City/Durban/Ellis park or the smaller cities? You would have prefered the WC in Egypt or Moroco since those 2 lost out in the bidding from your insinuations. Blame games? ... only from you.
Do you remember how, and against who Germany won the hosting right in 2006 ? Do you think that weren't politics involved ? You say that there weren't many empty seats in 2002 because you were there ? Well there were! I remember,watching on TV many empty seats, especilally a knockout round between Germany & Paraguay ( After verication, this match had an attendance of 25,000 for a stadium capacity of 42,000). And that's just one example but this one is quite surprising for a K.O round involving Germany.You must have been very lucky back then in 2002 to attend match where there weren't empty seats. If you have the real attendances for 2010, could you give them ?
Do I think the fiqures from 2002 are real compared to 2010? Yes. Why? Let's brake down the differences between the nations of Korea/Japan and South Africa. Without breaking each one down, this is why in simpliest form; Economy, Safety, Public and Private Support, Value, Time of Season, Infrastructure, Transportation, Tourism, Bascially, First World vs Second/Third World I didn't say the WC was a complete failure and in fact, have even praised certain aspects of it but the fact this WC is a money wash, the attendance, even in Durban, PE, CT, and Jo'berg, was not very good and the fact FIFA and the SAC gave away tickets for free and rock bottom prices in order to get people in the stands doesn't help the accounting department any. Not only am I using my experience in attending matches but watching them on TV. I watched every match this WC, EVERY MATCH. Too many empty stadia for a WC and thus I don't believe what FIFA or the SAC will say because they cannot afford as it is to announce anything bad. They controlled everything or just about in SA and only they have the real data to supply. FACTS are a great source and obviously what should be considered but sometimes FACTS have to be questioned on how they were obtained, the source, when, where; all of that and it's quite difficult to me to believe SA had better Attendance than Korea and Japan UNLESS, we were told how many tickets were given away for free, which would make a difference because they didn't happen in the last 4 World Cups I've attended. No WC can attest to the amount of Politics that went into this one. Sepp Blatter has said for the past 2 decades he wanted the WC to be held in Africa (South Africa). He has made it a personal interest to do so and he got it. My issue lies with FIFA telling the rest of the world they cannot mix the two and yet, FIFA does it. Hypocrisy? Of course. I would rather see all Politics out but that just won't happen and probably cannot. I'm saying Common Sense tells me different than what FIFA wants to tell me. By the way, I'm still waiting for my $2,500 dollars in tickets they resold and made additional profit from!!! I guess they are waiting to get the numbers out before they return it to me (Policy states 4 weeks after end of Final at latest). They sold mine in May.
I suppose that depends on who is writing the articles and from where? I found 5 articles from the UK to the US on how this was a bad cup. Here is one of them, http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/worldcup/story/spain-manages-to-shine-in-dark-world-cup-final I don't think anyone is questioning the support of the South African people as evident in the vuvuzela's. It's nearly everything else that's in question.
Of course facts need to be checked by arguing that you can get a better idea of the number of people attending a game through what you see on TV is and argument from incredulity. As much as you would like to think that you have the ability to even get the right Idea of what a crowd size is through watching TV, you don't. It is impossible as you don't know if they show the same empty seat once or ten times, you don't know whether that is a group of fans wearing the same colour of empty seats, you know far too little to estimate correctly. I went to 4 games and I struggled to find an empty seat, but does that mean it was completely full, not necessarily. The only way for these stats to be argued against are if someone does an independent audit of them but if you are going to base your opinion on Something as faultful as the human eye then in the end, the only people you will convince are those that agreed with you in the first place. If they were going to doctor the figures then why make them unbelievably high, a little bit below 2002 and I'm sure people would have considered it a success. Also, was there politics in 2006 as well. South Africa were very unlucky not to get it in 2006 so are you going to come up with another conspiracy for that. Maybe it's all part of Fifa's evil plan to rule the world .
Why don't you just give the real attendance for this World Cup ? You don't seem less biased than FIFA obviously ? Don't beat about the bush and give us the figures! You probably believe that the World cup draw was rigged. There were empty seats during this WC, denying this would be hypocritical. Saying that there weren't empty seats during the Japan/Korea 2002 WC is also hypocritical. The fact is that, pretty much every match In Soccer city (85000), Durban(60000) and Cape town (65000) were sellout is enough to raise the level of the attendance over 49,000 considering that those three stadiums were significantly bigger than the ones which had issues with empty seats. For this WC, there was a total capacity of 3,8M seats and the attendance was 3,2M. That seems about right to me but if you can prove that it was less you can do it. So you're saying that this WC was awarded on political ground. Yes, there was politics involved but like pretty much every WC. The US were awarded the 1994 WC in 1988, despite the fact that they didn't qualify since 1950. You think that awarding the WC to both Korea and Japan in 2002 wasn't political ? You believe that the refs mistakes involving one of the hosts were innocent? You're aware that Germany hosted the WC in 2006 after beating South Africa 12-11 (With England, Brazil and Morocco also bidding) in the final voting round where bribery was involved (an OFC official "suddenly" decided to abstain ). There were even calls for a re-vote. Why didn't Blatter rigged the vote, since according to you he manipulated the figures and wanted Africa to host the World Cup for the past 2 decades? You believe that they weren't any politics involved ? In 2010, only African countries were allowed to bid ( which was mainly due to what happened in 2006) and S.Africa had the better bid . There is always politics involved in what's concerning the hosting a WC.
It's pretty obvious. FIFA is one of the most corrupt international organizations on the planet and they are covering their own butts for selecting a country that should not be hosting a World Cup. Not hard to see and not surprising considering this is FIFA.
Can you kindly give us criteria for countries that should be holding a World Cup and in which sports? Should South Africa also stop hosting continental cups? South Africa have hosted: 1995 Rugby World Cup 1996 Golf Men's World Cup 1998 Athletics World Cup 2003 Cricket World Cup 2005 - 2008 Golf Women's World Cup 2007 Cricket Twenty20 World Cup 2010 Soccer World Cup
South Africa also hosted the Indian premier league, IPL, last year which is a massive event. Plus the Confed cup last year. SA also hosts an A1 gp and has previously hosted many F1 races. The golf presidents cup was also hosted in SA a couple of years ago. Last year SA also hosted the British and Irish lions tour.. I don't think too many countries in the world have ever hosted as many major events as SA has.. I can only really think of England