Capetonians to foot stadium bill
2010-10-06 18:17
News 24
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Cape Town - Ratepayers will end up paying for Cape Town stadium's operating costs after Sail Stadefrance walked out on a 30-year lease to manage the property.
"We do not have final numbers on what this will cost the ratepayer. In the end it will be up to the citizens of Cape Town on whether they come to the stadium to support the teams and events," the city's acting mayor Ian Neilson told reporters on Wednesday.
The city will take over management of the R4.4bn stadium.
Sail Stadefrance said it had projected "substantial losses" if it took up the project.
Sail Stadefrance Operating Company (SSOC) chief executive Morne du Plessis said "unresolved matters" affecting the viability of the lease, due to start on November 1, and "severe operating constraints" had caused the company to withdraw from the lease.
"The operating cost was surprising," he said.
"The maintenance costs were way above expectations.
Major constraints
"In the light of unresolved matters that materially affected the viability of the lease and severe operating constraints, we have advised the city that SSOC would not be in a position to enter the lease on November 1 2010, as the shareholders were not prepared to enter the lease under circumstances that projected substantial losses."
Du Plessis said the company had indicated that it was willing to accept an extension of the management contract amended to include a risk and reward structure with specified timelines to deal with unresolved issues that affect business viability.
"Unfortunately the city and ourselves were not able to reach agreement on these amended terms," he said.
The chief factors leading SSOC to withdraw were high costs of maintaining the stadium, the failure to secure anchor tenants and "business constraints".
Du Plessis said the running of Green Point Park, next to the stadium, was proving to be a major cost.
Neilson said the national government, which invested R10bn in Cape Town's infrastructure before the 2010 World Cup, had to carry some of the responsibility for managing the stadium.
The city, which invested around R2bn of its own money before the tournament, had no choice but to build its World Cup stadium in Green Point as cheaper sites at Athlone and Newlands were "not suitable" to soccer's governing body, FIFA.
"We had no choice. It was Green Point or don't be involved in the World Cup.
"In the end hundreds of thousands of people came to Cape Town during the tournament and saw what we can make happen.
You can't put a number on that.
"It is national government who put the stadia up. It must take some of the responsibility."
Talks with WP Rugby
Neilson said the city was still to hold discussions with Western Province Rugby about whether it would move from Newlands and host its games at the stadium.
One of Western Province Rugby's main concerns about the stadium had been its lack of corporate suits.
Neilson said the city was prepared to look at expanding the number of suites in the stadium.
"Boxes would be an issue, but there are solutions to that."
The city would take over the management of the stadium "for the foreseeable future", he said.
"We will manage the stadium until we see a way forward.
"It is not our vision to take over the permanent running of the stadium."
In a briefing to Parliament earlier this year, director of the city's 2010 operations Lesley De Reuck said the current operational and maintenance costs, including management of the adjacent Green Point Park, were around R46.5m a year.
» » [News 24]
ANALYSIS: The Big Five: Stadiums could become white elephants
Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:22:23 GMT
Earth Times
 $1,2bn (R8,9bn). The estimated total construction cost of SA's 10 World Cup stadiums. [ANC Captain Blighs of S.Y. ZA-Titanic Charging Full 'Circus Maximus' Speed Ahead to 2010 World Cup Iceberg...] |
Johannesburg - Are the new stadiums built for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, a country where football jostles with rugby and cricket for audience, destined to become white elephants after the month-long tournament? That's the 12.1-billion-rand, or 1.57-billion-dollar question - the cost of five new stadiums in Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Nelspruit and Polokwane.
The "white elephant" spectre is one that has come to haunt World Cup and Olympic Games hosts.
A little over a year after the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games China is struggling to find a real purpose for its 450-million-dollar showpiece Bird's Nest stadium, while one of Germany's 2006 World Cup stadiums in Leipzigalso struggles to attract more than a few thousand fans to third-division games.
» » » » [Read Further]
Public loss, FIFA’s gain: How Cape Town got its ‘white elephant’
Sepp Blatter and Thabo Mbeki intervened to have Cape Town's Green Point Stadium built -- at R3-billion more expensive than two available alternatives.
Karen Schoonbee and Stefaans Brümmer, Amabhugane & ISS
Apr 29 2010
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INTRODUCTION
It was FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s first visit to the Mother City, but he knew exactly what he wanted from her.
When Ebrahim Rasool, then premier of the Western Cape, went to see Blatter at the five-star Arabella Sheraton Hotel on 22 November 2005, the visitor complimented Cape Town’s ‘spectacular scenery’, saying the city could be the ‘face’ of 2010 and host one of two semi-final matches. He came to the point: the city’s match venue should be at Green Point and not Newlands Stadium as envisaged when South Africa won the bid to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup 18 months earlier, or Athlone Stadium, favoured by the province and the city for its developmental potential. A brand new stadium.
Later that day Blatter met with Thabo Mbeki. What the FIFA president and the country’s then president discussed can be inferred from a call Rasool received the next day. Laurine Platzky, the provincial official heading 2010 co-ordination, detailed the events above in an affidavit during a later court dispute over environmental approval for the new stadium. She continued: ‘On 23 November 2005 the minister in the presidency Mr Essop Pahad telephoned the premier and said that the presidency felt that Cape Town should consider … Green Point.’[1]
These events, confirmed by Rasool on affidavit,[2] arguably represent the tipping point in a decision set to burden the nation with billions of rands in excessive direct costs and Cape Town with the maintenance of a white elephant for years to come.
Below we examine the decision-making process that led to this outcome, arguing that
national government was structurally conflicted. Instead of it remaining the neutral
arbiter of competing interests, including those of FIFA, in the public interest, FIFA’s interests effectively became those of government.
It was not necessarily wrong to turn the world cup into a national priority. But South Africa’s interest in staging a successful event and FIFA’s interests are not necessarily synonymous. Had government retained more independence, an outcome far less burdensome may have been achieved.
» » » » [Read Further]
Prosecutor's office links FIFA officials to bribery scandal
Senior FIFA Officials were centrally involved in the biggest and most spectacular bribery scandal in Olympic history, Swiss prosecutor's office confirms.
24 June 2010
By Jens Weinreich, Play the Game
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Senior FIFA Officials were centrally involved in the biggest and most spectacular bribery scandal in Olympic history, Swiss prosecutor's office confirms.
In 2008 it was revealed that the ISL/ISMM-group - former marketing partner of FIFA, IOC and many other Olympic world federations (Athletics, Basketball, Swimming, Tennis) - had paid at least 138 million Swiss francs to senior officials to secure broadcasting contracts worth several billion US-Dollars.
For the first time ever, Swiss prosecution authorities from the city of Zug, where the ISL-group was based until its collapse in 2001, have confirmed that FIFA officials have taken bribes.
The prosecution office said in a statement today: "Foreign persons of FIFA-institutions have received provisions from the ISL/ISMM-group." Surprisingly, the word "provisions" is used rather than the more correct term for these dubious transactions: bribes.
» » » » [Read Further]
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