Programme Director, Members of Emfuleni and Sedibeng Mayoral Committee, Councillors present here today, Distinguished guests, Esteemed Members of the Public, Soccer lovers, Ladies and Gentleman.

Today on this eve of the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup and with only 26 days remaining towards the official kick-off; as Emfuleni municipality we saw a need together with our partners to organise this unique occasion. We are here for the screening of soccer stories that would give insight into the footballing world of some of the best and most famous players ever to grace our screens and produced by the football fraternity.

This soccer cinema would provide us with an opportunity to showcase ground-breaking documentaries so that our children can have the opportunity of receiving football education and also to help them dream as most of the soccer greats come from similar backgrounds as the rest of us.

Highlight progress

To date a joint operation centre has been established to manage all activities relevant to the world-cup.

As the district, we are happy to report that the national team of Switzerland and Cote D'Ivoire would be hosted by our district. Both the hotel and training base for our visiting teams are ready. After temporary disruption the work on George Thabe Stadium is back on track.

All the necessary safety precautions are on track. Security for Team-base camps and training venues has been concluded and disaster management plans for the Team-base camps have been finalized.

The provincial department of transport has finally given an approval for the erection of signer boards and hanging of flags.

The task-team responsible media, marketing and publicity is planning a media launch next week on the 21st of May to promote and build the hype around the World Cup in our district and this event is also testimony to this.

In terms of tourism, we need to showcase the best that we have in our district including, wine route, township tours and heritage tours. 50 tourism volunteers are appointed for the world cup, grading of accommodation and registering of home stays are still proceeding well, For us to benefit from tourism we first need to stop and do away with this bad habit of public dumping of refuse and to take care of our area.

In terms of recreation and entertainment, the transnet truck has started in Bophelong and proceeded to Evaton area and public viewing areas have been identified and assessed for suitability.

In terms of health and cleansing, we are particularly worried about the human trafficking and want to make our communities aware and warn them of the ever present danger of people hell-bent on using and exploiting our soccer world-up event as a basis to carry out gross criminal activities.

We want to mobilize all sections of our communities to rally behind our national team and support this 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup. This is Africa's World Cup, it is ours, feel it, it is here, ke nako.