Crime threatens 2010 World Cup

Eric Bost, the new U.S. ambassador to South Africa said few would travel to the 2010 World Cup in the country if crime continued at current levels.

"I look at things somewhat simplistically on occasion and the issue for me is this: who is going to be interested in spending a significant amount of money coming here on holiday, to have a good time, when you're concerned about the possibility of getting hurt?," Bost told the Sunday Times.

South Africa is battling some of the highest rates of crime in the world. Even a group of German tour operators who had visited South Africa to look at facilities that would be available to tourists in 2010 World Cup were robbed during their visit.

“Such tour operators are unlikely to encourage their nationals to visit South Africa,” Bost added.

South Africa has said it will spend ZAR 15.1 billion (EUR 1.6 billion) on the 2010 World Cup, where the figure includes ZAR 3.5 billion (EUR 375 million) on fighting crime and improving the criminal justice system to combat violent crime, employing an extra 8,000 police officers and 2,000 civilians in police employment.

Bost said South Africa was a wonderful country with fantastic potential, but the balance sheet of positives and negatives was tilting towards the negative.

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.