World Cup crowds to be highest in 16 years

FIFA World Cup organisers have predicted that the total attendance in South Africa will top three million, which will be the largest cumulative crowd since the 1994 tournament in the USA.

Despite concerns over empty seats for group games, which FIFA put down to problems with distribution methods for blocks of tickets sold to local businesses and government, South Africa 2010 chief executive Danny Jordaan, said the tournament was now on course to be the most well attended for 16 years.

Jordaan said: “We are going into the quarter-finals of a wonderful, people-driven World Cup. It’s really the people of this country and the foreign fans that have injected the energy and the passion into this World Cup.

“We have the possibility of an African team going beyond the frontiers of what has been achieved before. We also have the possibility of two coaches (Dunga and Diego Maradona) going where only Franz Beckenbauer has gone before and winning the World Cup as a player and a coach.

“There is also the possibility of a Brazil v Argentina final, which of course is one of the biggest games you can have from a South American point of view.”