The next World Cup

last updated 8 January 2015

Johannesburg

South Africa began preparations this week to host the 2010 soccer World Cup. It will be the first African country to hold the huge tournament, and soccer officials have been murmuring that it won’t be able to build enough stadiums or housing. Organizer Danny Jordaan insists that his country is ahead of where this year’s host, Germany, was four years ago. “When you compare Germany with SA, they did not even have a tournament logo at the time of the 2002 World Cup,” Jordaan said. But critics note that designing a logo is a lot easier than providing housing for millions of visitors, particularly in a country with several million citizens who are homeless or living in shanties.