The clock is ticking on South Africa

By Keir Radnedge, Special to SI.com, World Soccer

Green Point Stadium in Cape Town is one of five venues being constructed from scratch for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. David Rogers/Getty Images Related Links VICKERY: Brazil has five years to pull own miracle

South Africa will be ready for the World Cup in 2010 and, as much as is necessary, will be ready for the Confederations Cup this June. How South Africa will cope is, of course, another matter entirely.

Danny Jordaan promises "the greatest World Cup ever." He has no option. As chief executive of the organizing committee, he must parrot the line uttered by all local chieftains since, one assumes, Admiral Vaccaro in Italy in 1934 (the Uruguayans in that long-ago previous, inaugural 1930 edition had needed no such boast, of course).

Since Jordaan has -- and has had -- to steer his World Cup ship through a complex diplomatic, administrative and political minefield, we can absolve him of the sin of hyperbole.

The truth, as he knows possibly with a sense of prospective relief, is that once the soccer starts, all the flame and fuss over stadium construction, transport projects, hotel prices and even ticketing allocations are firmly dumped in the dustbin of media history by the onset of what the World Cup is really all about: the soccer.

Confidence that the Rainbow nation will be ready is evinced by one man with more expertise than any other. Horst R. Schmidt is the self-effacing former general secretary of the German federation who has organized two World Cups himself ('74 and '06) and was sent to Johannesburg by FIFA two years ago as "consultant" to the organizing committee.

Schmidt is not based in the impressive new SAFA headquarters merely to relay happy messages back to FIFA headquarters in Zurich -- his real task is to oversee the entire project. Anything wrong, anything out of step, and the danger is that Zurich will know and the wrath of Sepp Blatter will be aroused.

To be fair, the vision of president Sepp as an avenging angel may be a little far-fetched, but this is what Schmidt is about. FIFA in general, but Blatter in particular, has invested huge amounts of money, manpower and blind faith in delivering a first World Cup to Africa and nothing must go wrong in lead-up, delivery or execution.

"South Africa's readiness at this stage of preparations compares easily with other past hosts," Schmidt says. "The most important factor is the infrastructure. With two years to go, I know people around the world had doubts about whether South Africa could deliver 10 quality venues and do it in time. But the work has made enormous progress and with great quality because of the excellence of the planning. They can deliver in terms both of quality and on time.

"If there are cost overruns then I have to say that, on delivery issues, this is quite normal in preparing for a World Cup in a fluctuating financial context. But there is no danger that South Africa cannot deliver both the Confederations and World Cups."

Project South Africa is different to all other World Cups, and not merely by the accident of geography. This is a nation running away from a divisive and hateful past and seeking to build a new society on an economic fast track. Millions are being spent on urban-highway creation, selective airport redevelopment and an ambitious regional passenger-transit system in and around Johannesburg.

The latter concept, the Gautrain, is essential to help override the traffic congestion which would wreck all those happy dreams of the great occasions ahead at the out-of-town Soccer City complex which will host the 2010 World Cup final.

A year ago, I saw a naked concrete bowl -- now Soccer City is getting dressed. The Austrian-developed outer cladding of the calabash, the clay pot, stadium is being applied; the Italian-honed roof panels which have been stitched in Bangkok are being hauled into place; the floor plan for the operation of the nearby International Broadcast Centre has been laid down. Elsewhere, work is reasonably close to target, though "delivery" of the stadiums now appears to mean "delivery without frills and fittings" rather than in entirety.

Port Elizabeth -- "P.E." in World Cup 2010 argot -- was struck from the Confederations Cup agenda after construction delays and controversy in Cape Town continues to surround the new Green Point stadium. Whether it was needed, in the first place, to supplant Newlands, is an argument lost. The question now is, who pays for the upgrading FIFA is demanding beyond the original specifications?

Organizing chairman Irving Khoza did concede that Cape Town faces a particular challenge on environmental issues concerning noise and wind as well as the stadium's lighting system and has been promised by FIFA general secretary Jérôme Valcke that extra costs will be discussed "in good faith."