(ATR) The problems witnessed prior to and during the Brazil v North Korea match at Ellis Park on Tuesday night may rear their head again after energy industry workers said they were prepared to "cross the line" and bring South Africa’s power infrastructure to its knees.
Thousands of fans were left stuck outside Ellis Park in a potentially dangerous scrum for nearly an hour after turnstiles malfunctioned amid power supply problems.
Concourses and hospitality suites were also plunged into darkness, while one of the Ellis Park scoreboards remained blacked out throughout.
Now South Africa’s largest union, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), says that it is prepared to initiate long-threatened industrial action after negotiations over pay increases stalled.
"We are asking that the power company Eskom give us an 18 per cent wage increment, and they are still at six," the NUM's Lesiba Seshoka was quoted by AFP.
"We cannot postpone our children's hunger because there is a World Cup in our country."
The NUM needs a permit to strike, but claims to be confident it can get the necessary clearance by the end of the week.
South Africa suffers regular power shortages, and a strike by Seshoka’s union – which has 16,000 members – could prove ruinous to the overburdened network.
The World Cup stadiums are supposed to be in possession of back-up generators, but the problems witnessed at Ellis Park were all too evident.
Strike action by stadium security staff has already seen police take over security at four of the ten World Cup venues – Durban, Cape Town and the two Johannesburg stadiums.
Yesterday angry workers gathered at the Durban offices of the company at the heart of the action - Stallion Security Consortium – to collect their wages, after they had been paid off following Sunday’s strike. But with the offices closed due to a public holiday, two of them reportedly tried to torch the building, before being prevented by fellow workers.
Minister puts spin on visitor numbers
South Africa’s anticipated World Cup visitor boom has never really happened, and the originally projected target of 450,000 has long been revised down by organisers.
So it was some surprise that Deputy Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba told reporters that 456,423 visitors who arrived between June 1-13 identified themselves as having come for the World Cup.
"We are quite sure that this figure will continue increasing as the World Cup progresses," Gigaba said.
Local press quickly poured scorn on this figure after it emerged that it was the total number of visitors to South Africa during the period. This included day visitors from neighbouring Zimbabwe, Namibia and Lesotho.
World Cup organisers yesterday clarified the figures saying that 110,000 foreign visitors during that period were here for the World Cup. But during this time an additional 140,000 expatriate South Africans had returned home on the same period as last year.
FIFA, meanwhile, has cleared up how it compiles its attendance figures, after doubt was cast on some of its official attendances. Monday’s Holland v Denmark game was reported at just 2,000 under capacity – despite plenty of empty seats.
A FIFA spokesman told INSIDER that figures are based on turnstile figures at half-time – and not on tickets sold. Some club teams – notably Arsenal – use the latter method.
"I didn’t see many empty seats after half-time [at Holland v Denamerk] except in the corporate seating," he added.
These, of course, are the most prominent seats at Soccer City – so maybe the problem is one of perception over reality.
Goal drought continues as big guns fail to shine
Spain’s unexpected defeat to Switzerland completed a miserable opening round of games for FIFA’s top 10 ranked teams in the World Cup.
Of them, just four – Brazil, Germany, Argentina and Holland – managed victories in their opening games, but more worrisome is the paucity of goals witnessed in the first round of matches.
Only 1.56 goals per game have so far been managed, a figure significantly lower than in any other tournament in World Cup history.
The previouslowest tally, of 2.21 goals per game in Italia ’90, precipitated significant tweaks to the laws of the game, including the "backpass rule" and modifications to the offside law, so that it favoured attackers.
These transformed the pace and intensity of football, although whether they improved the game is a matter of debate.
One wonders what changes the International Football Association Board (IFAB) will consider when it meets in Wales next March if the current drought endures for the entire tournament.
Blatter watch
The FIFA president was in Durban, watching his compatriots Switzerland shock Spain 1-0.
World Cup in numbers
16 – the landmark birthday enjoyed by South Africa 2010 mascot Zakumi the Lion yesterday. No, we don’t know where they got the figure from either.
ByINSIDER's European correspondent James Corbett in Pretoria(james@worldfootballinsider.com)
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