The countdown has really begun in earnest now, and it is sad to see how many negative people there are out there. Ticket sales is one thing, and I wrote on www.lawblog.co.za quite some time ago about how impossible the FIFA website was, and as somebody who really has considerable Internet experience as well as experience of purchasing things online.

A lot of people who would be able to go, and can afford tickets, such as a lot of my staff, still would not have credit cards because either they have not been approved for them, or they are aware of the risks involved with overspending on credit cards and choose to avoid them now. Without one, you could not book a ticket online, and so I really don’t think that is much of a problem – we will see a lot more tickets sold closer to the time when they distribute them over the counter as it were.

What is more concerning are all these overseas coaches and people who know nothing at all about South Africa who go on and on. I have been a victim of crime, but I can still say that there are certain parts of New York or London that I would be very nervous to go to by myself and I don’t think that the average tourist to South Africa, living in an hotel and going in buses to stadiums or tourist locations, is really in any risk of serious crime. If I had to warn them about something, I would say watch out for our roads – there are a lot of deaths and the compensation under the new Road Accident Fund Act is somewhat pathetic.