It's our turn
The FIFA committee responsible for assessing who will host the 2010 World Cup arrives tomorrow, reports Inas Mazhar
The five-man FIFA delegation that arrives in Cairo tomorrow will determine the fate of Egypt's bid to host the 2010 World Cup. Egypt is the delegation's final stop on a tour that has taken them across the continent -- to South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya -- to assess the competing nation's chances.
The seven-day visit to Egypt will end on 30 January, during which time the delegation will spend 150 working hours assessing Egypt's World Cup prospects. The decision will be announced in Zurich on 15 May following a vote by FIFA's 24 executive board members.
The final decision will be based on a multitude of factors -- on the presence of cultural, social and historical diversity as well as on stadiums, infrastructure, safety, telecommunications and the perceived ability to implement submitted action plans.
The Egyptian 2010 committee has arranged a full programme for the FIFA delegation. Arriving from Zurich, the team will head straight to the Pyramids -- not for sightseeing but to the site where, if Egypt wins the bid, the draw to determine who will play whom in the World Cup will be made.
Day two will comprise inspections in Cairo and Giza -- in particular the stadiums -- and will end with a tour of the new Wadi Degla Sporting Club.
"It's not just the construction or renovation of the stadiums that they'll be checking," Egypt's bid coordinator, Hisham Azmi, says. "They'll be checking the whole area, all the surroundings, including services and facilities like hotels, hospitals, transportation and entertainment."
"Day three," Azmi warns, "will be the most hectic day of all." It will begin at the Cairo International Conference Centre where the Egyptian candidacy will be introduced in Kufu Hall. "It will take us six hours for the presentation," Azmi said.
On the same day the FIFA delegation will take the train to Alexandria.
According to Azmi "they wanted to take the train in order to inspect our railway facilities". The trip to Alexandria will include a 45-minute visit to the Alexandria Library during which the delegation will be briefed on the history of Egyptian sports and will be presented with evidence establishing that the Ancient Egyptians invented a variety of football. "Some say China was the first," Azmi adds with a smile. "But there they will get the right information."
The day will conclude with visits to the facilities of the city -- hotels, hospitals and clubs.
The next morning the committee will visit Borg Al-Arab Stadium, currently under construction. From there they will fly to Port Said to watch a friendly between the Swiss team Neuchatel and a watered down Egyptian team. Key members of the national squad are currently in Tunisia preparing for the African Nations Cup.
"It will be an opportunity for them to watch the Egyptian fans in the stadium, how they enter and leave, how security deals with the fans and how guides lead spectators to their places. They'll check all facilities in and out of the stadium."
On day five the delegation will tour the Canal cities Port Said, Ismailia and Suez after which they will be flown by helicopter to Sharm El-Sheikh. While Sharm is not one of the host cities, its popularity as a tourist destination has made it the locale of choice for a FIFA referee workshop in 2010. The workshop site will be visited.
On day six the delegates will take a ferry from Sharm to the Red Sea resort of Hurghada. "We want to show them all the means of transportation in Egypt," Azmi said, adding that the team will visit the site where Hurghada international stadium will be built, and the Military Hospital. From there they will take a bus to Luxor.
By dawn of day seven the delegation will be back in Cairo and ready for a final day, starting with a visit to the first International Health and Rehabilitation Centre on the Cairo-Ismailia desert road, which will include a tour of the first international drugs and steroid sports lab in the Middle East. A visit to the Military Academy Stadium is also planned, after which the solitary scheduled international press conference, on 30 January at the Heliopolis Sheraton, will mark the culmination of the visit.
The night will end with a bash, Egyptian-style, attended by pop-singers and movie stars galore.
The programme has been carefully overseen by Minister of Youth Alieddin Hilal, who has emphasised transparency in the entire affair.
"We are glad that we are the only candidate nation that has released details of the visit to the public and the media," he said. "In some candidate countries it was confidential and had to be that way because of security concerns," Hilal said. "We are confident, however, of the safety of our country and we want the people to be fully involved with us, to show the delegates what a great country we are, how eager we are to host the greatest sporting event in the world."
