Renewed fears for future of World Cup stadiums

Too small for cricket and passed over by rugby, the stadiums that cost South Africa more than $1 billion for this year's World Cup already appear to be turning into white elephants.

Both rugby and cricket are more commercially successful than football in South Africa, and both sports need to move into the new stadiums - built and renovated for Africa's first World Cup - to keep them alive financially.

On Tuesday, South African Rugby Union president Oregan Hoskins told members of parliament in Cape Town that there had been no discussions between Durban city officials and rugby representatives before the $400 million, 70,000-capacity Moses Mabhida Stadium was built, and now it did not have enough suites to accommodate the local Sharks rugby team's suite holders.

Hoskins said that the Sharks, who compete in the annual Super Rugby competition and the domestic Currie Cup and could offer near year-round use, would have a "massive problem" to move to the new stadium.

"What we are discussing today should have been discussed before we built the stadiums," Hoskins said. "It is tragic for us as a nation that we have to act in reverse."

The situation in Cape Town is just as bad, according to Hoskins, because of the deteriorating relationship between the local Western Province rugby union and the Green Point Stadium operators.

The South African Press Association quoted Western Province Rugby president Tobie Titus as saying that on the advice of an independent financial adviser, Western Province Rugby was staying at its current stadium, Newlands.

So the iconic Green Point Stadium, set in the shadow of the famous Table Mountain, could now be rarely used and is set to cost more than $6 million a year just to maintain.

Cricket South Africa chief executive Gerald Majola added that the pitches at the stadiums were too small to host cricket games, and blamed this on the failure of cities to consult cricket authorities before construction.

Hoskins said the hype generated by the recent World Cup also hid many of the issues, leaving the stadiums now struggling to bring in income.

"In 2007, before the new stadiums were built, I wrote to the minister of sport and said I foresaw major problems coming and I asked for the intervention of the ministry," Hoskins told the committee. "Unfortunately, we were all taken up by the soccer World Cup and in the hype we forgot we should have been talking to each other."

In July, South African Football Association chief executive Leslie Sedibe conceded to the same parliamentary committee that football faced a major challenge to keep the stadiums in use and profitable - largely due to traditionally low ticket prices charged at local matches and the high cost of running the world class arenas.

Sedibe's observation came just 10 days after the World Cup ended, and after South Africa spent an estimated $1.3 billion building and upgrading the 10 stadiums used for the tournament.

It was hoped rugby and cricket would help out.

But, even as the world champion South African rugby team prepares to play its first international at the 94,000-seat Soccer City in Johannesburg, the venue for the World Cup final, the assessments of Hoskins and Majola paint a bleak picture for the stadiums' long-term future.

Majola said Cricket South Africa had been forced to seek special permission from the International Cricket Council to host a Twenty20 game between South Africa and India at the Moses Mabhida Stadium early next year, but it was a one-off and the playing surface was still too small for major games.

He also pointed to a lost opportunity for cricket to move to World Cup stadiums in the northern cities of Rustenburg, Polokwane and Nelspruit, which are likely to struggle because of their remote locations and lack of major sporting teams nearby.

"Historically, our game had not been played in some of the areas where some of stadiums were built," Majola said. "We saw an opportunity, but unfortunately we were not part of the designs of the stadiums.

"Unfortunately, we are compelled by the size of fields. When these fields were built, we were not part of that."

Majola said if the stadiums had been suitable, CSA could have made space for an annual tournament like the popular Indian Premier League.

In his brutally honest assessment, Hoskins said all the problems threatened to make South Africa "a laughing stock."

"We want to use the new stadiums," Hoskins said. "We want to take the game to the people, but these issues are going to stand in our way in a big way."