Monday’s attack on the Sri Lankan cricket side during their tour of Pakistan, has resulted in FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke calling for a ‘a crisis evaluation committee’ meeting with the South African 2010 organisers.
While most of the attention regarding security for the during 2006 World Cup in Germany was geared to keeping rival sets of hooligans apart, Germany’s police chief Konrad Freiberg said that a much bigger threat in 2010 was the possibility of the World Cup being an ‘attractive target’ for terrorists.
The 2010 World Cup, the first to be staged on the African continent, is expected to attract up to 1 million tourists.
It will be broadcast globally, making it an extremely high-profile target for terrorist groups wanting to attract global publicity.
South Africa’s Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel has reiterated the government’s commitment to make additional policing capacity available during the World Cup and to increase safety and security presence at border posts.
SAPS will spend R640-million on the deployment of 41, 000 officers specifically for the event and R665-million on the procurement of special equipment. SAPS also aims to increase its personnel by 30,000 by the time the 2010 event comes around.
