Soccer City is the home of South African football. The opening ceremony and the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ final will take place here.
LOCATED in Johannesburg’s southwest and only a stone’s throw from one of the country’s football crazy townships, Soweto, Soccer City Stadium will host the opening ceremony, and opening and final matches of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™.
The stadium will also host four first-round matches, one second-round match and one quarter-final. Joburg’s other World Cup venue, Ellis Park Stadium, will host five first-round matches, one second-round match and one quarter-final.
Soccer City, formally known as FNB Stadium, is undergoing major upgrades. Construction started early in 2007 and Stan Aarts, the technical manager of Grinaker-LTA, the consortium tasked with the work, says completion has been tentatively set for July 2009.
During a visit to the construction site in July 2008, the FIFA secretary-general, Jerome Valcke, said he was impressed not only by the progress of construction, but also by the general work being done in preparation for the World Cup.
"As FIFA we are confident that preparations for the 2010 World Cup in terms of transport, security, accommodation and stadium construction are going on very well. We are getting what we need from South Africa in terms of our agreement for the country to host the event."
Soccer City is being rebuilt at a cost of R1,5-billion. The contract comprises partially demolishing and rebuilding, and completely revamping the stadium as well as providing all associated facilities.
The original stadium had a capacity of 80 000 people; upgrades involve extending the upper tier around the stadium to increase the capacity to 94 700; adding 99 more suites to bring the present number to 184; constructing an encircling roof; adding new change room facilities; and installing new floodlighting.
In addition, private boxes, VIP suites, eight television presentation studios, a soccer museum and a 300-seater restaurant will also be built. New public parking for 15 000 cars will be added and a VIP underground parking is being built for 4 055 cars.
The design of the new stadium is inspired by the African calabash, and its aesthetic appeal will be heightened when the stadium is lit up at night to resemble a traditional African cooking pot.
This design was selected from a series of concept designs ranging from acknowledgements of Johannesburg’s disappearing mine dumps; a kgotla (a meeting place, defined symbolically by a tree) of the African city state; and a representation of the protea, South Africa’s national flower; to a map of Africa as a horizontal representation, which included the roof as a desert plane supported on tropical trees set within the mineral wealth of Southern Africa.
The calabash was selected as being the most recognisable object that would be associated with the continent. The “calabash” stadium sits on a “pit of fire”, a depression that demarcates the security and line of turnstiles separating the outer areas and the secure inner areas.
The roof structure is a complex affair: 12 54 tonne A-frame steel structures, which form part of the 7 000 tonnes of structural steel imported from Italy, will support the PTFE membrane and polycarbonate roof.
An important element of the roof is the façade that will form an outer shell of the stadium. Designed and constructed by Austrian company Rieder Smart Elements, and metal materials manufacturer Valenta Metallbau, the facade will use fibre-C glassfibre concrete, which is highly durable and fire resistant.
The façade, which is divided into 10 vertical sections, will consist of six colours and three textures of the calabash.
The stadium’s 94 700 orange seats are being installed on the lower and upper tiers. Made from polycarbonate material, they have been designed by a seat designer from the United Kingdom. That company has established a company in Durban and about 95 percent of the components for the seats are made locally.
Celebrating progress at the stadium, September 2007
According to Aarts, the pitch grass will be planted in situ in two months’ time.
“Seeding will be done on site in October this year so that the grass roots will be deeper and the resultant grass more lush than ready-to-plant grass.”
Strategically located close to Soccer City is Safa House, where the FIFA offices and those of the 2010 FIFA World Cup Organising Committee South Africa are housed. With its distinctive football-shaped dome, the building is clearly one of the legacies of the World Cup.
The area around Soccer City Stadium is also undergoing an upgrade. Running north of the stadium is the Soweto Highway which has been widened and forms part of the City’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system.
More than R120-million is being pumped into the Nasrec Precinct, in which the stadium falls. Here the upgraded Expo Centre will house the International Broadcast Centre (IBC), the nerve centre for all television operations and the world's news agencies for the six week of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™.
As part of the upgrades, the precinct will have a fully functional transport hub including a railway station. The rail system will serve future industrial, commercial and residential developments planned for the area after the soccer tournament.
Besides the rail station, the transport hub will have taxi, bus and rail drop off and pick up points. The total public transport capacity of the hub is projected to be 23 280 an hour.
The City's plans for the precinct (Click on the image for a larger version)
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