IAN JINDELA

South Africa is counting to the closing of the World Cup on July 11 at Soccer city. Once again the City of Gold will be dazzled with more than 80 000 expected fans to witness the closing ceremony of the 2010 World Cup. This will mark the history on African Continent. It all begun on June 11, from Table Mountain to the Copacabana in Brazil, from Durban Beach to the Eiffel Tower in Paris and from Soweto to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The South African Host Cities as well as Berlin, Mexico City, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Rome and Sydney opened their FIFA Fan Fest venues. The number of people who have flocked to the 10 FIFA Fan Fests since the tournament kicked off, past the 2 million mark on Saturday (3 July) with the best attendance on a “non Bafana match day” to date of 176,039 spectators. Durban once again had the highest attendance figure with 80,087 followed by Cape Town with 41,917 and Soweto with 20,732. Internationally 371 400 people flocked to FIFA Fan Fests bringing the total for July 3 to 547 439.
There are only 3 matches remaining and the Fan Park experience is the place to meet and make friends on African continent. This past weekend Nelson Mandela Bay Fan Park has been visited by the Songbird of Neo soul-Camagwini, pictured here. She dazzled the crowd with her distinctive voice into the sounds of Xhosa traditional folk music. Camagwini kept the audience warm in the cold afternoon with some of her new songs. The Nubian princess came with a storm in paying tribute to the late Busi Mhlongo who sadly died of cancer last month. Camagwini accompanied by the live band did a homecoming unique offering.
On the international arena, previous Saturday 306 500 people rocked the FIFA Fan Fest in Germany taking attendance here past the 1 million mark and taking the total for the tournament worldwide to 4,684,948. South African organizers at the various FIFA Fan Fests have lined up a variety of entertainment to keep fans happy before and after matches. Performers such as Prime Circle K’Naan, Flash Republic, Loyiso, Thandiswa Mazwai and Liquid Deep will join a host of others at the various parties which have been planned. The World awaits the final game on African Continent.