World Cup African Style

Tue, Jun 15, 2010

In about two hours time, all eyes around the world will turn to Africa as we witness the opening ceremony of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. We celebrate this outstanding leadership action demonstrated by South Africa’s successful bid to host the World Cup in Africa for the very first time. This is a momentous day to be remembered in Africa and beyond.
ChangeWaves congratulates the young people, women, men and all African teams that have participated in the qualification process that started at least 8 years ago. We are proud of the African women who have raised such gallant sons and football icons who have contributed to holding the African flag high. We particularly congratulate South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, Ghana, Cameroon and Ivory Coast, Africa’s participating countries at the 2010 World Cup, who have made us exceedingly proud. There will be one overall winner but to us you are all winners already!

The qualification competition for the 2010 FIFA World Cup was a series of tournaments organized by the six FIFA confederations over the last 3 years. Each confederation — the AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), CONCACAF (North America), CONMEBOL (South America), OFC (Oceania), and UEFA
(Europe) — was allocated a certain number of the 32 places at the tournament. A total of 204 teams entered the qualification competition, with South Africa, as the host, qualifying for the World Cup automatically. The first qualification matches were played on 25 August 2007 and qualification concluded on 18 November 2009. Overall, 2337 goals were scored over 848 matches.

The opening ceremony will hopefully be graced by one of the most celebrated leadership icons the world has ever seen, Nelson Rolihlahla (Madiba) Mandela and we are elated as Africans that he has lived to see this
glorious moment. The opening ceremony in Soccer City, Johannesburg,
one of the brand new South African stadiums, will be broadcast live by
the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) at 3:00pm Ugandan time (East
African Time), 1:00PM GMT, 2:00pm South African time and 1:00am US
Eastern Time. In Kenya you can follow the action on Kenya Broadcasting
Corporation (KBC) and Radio Africa and Tanzania Broadcasting
Corporation for our leaders in Tanzania.
Here in Uganda, one of our major telecom companies, Warid, has a
promotional offer for their customers to access the internet weekly
for 20.000 UGX during this World Cup period. To access, please type
DATA and send to 158.
The hour-long opening ceremony will be broadcast live in more than 215
countries worldwide, with an expected global audience of 500 million.
Some 85,000 of those will be at Soccer City to watch the event live.
In Uganda you can catch the action live at Nakivubo Stadium for an MTN
sponsored event, Kyadondo Rugby Club, All Saints Cathedral among other
places around town.