No major security breach during Confeds Cup

Pretoria - There was no major security breach committed during the prestigious FIFA Confederations Cup, thanks to the efforts made by the National Joint Operations and Intelligence Structure (NATJOINTS).

NATJOINTS Chairperson and Deputy National Police Commissioner, Andre Pruis, on Monday briefed reporters about security operations during the FIFA Confederations Cup.

"Since we've been tasked with the responsibility of all security-related operations during the eight nation tournament, we are satisfied that our years of planning and preparations resulted in no major security breach occurring during the tournament," he said.

He said the overall concept of the operations in respect of safety and security, will be implemented during the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Deputy Commissioner Pruis said FIFA hotels in all four host cities, Tshwane, Johannesburg, Bloemfontein and Rustenburg were monitored on a 24 hour basis.

A report was compiled after the 2003 Cricket World Cup. I quote: "Foreigners were generally very satisfied with the event and South Africa. Crime reported was at insignificant levels. 3% of visitors experienced an incident of crime whilst here. However, 99% of visitors (94% of those affected) said they would return again. Overall, safety and security - which were the foreigners' number one concern before they arrived here - showed the biggest improvement in rating from before to after the event." 99% of the visitors to the World Cup also said they will recommend South Africa to other people (Source).

Compare above-mentioned with, for example, Australia: According to the Australian Institute for Criminology, just over 2% of tourists were victims of crime in Australia in 2005 (Source) - Despite that, 94% of overseas people regard Australia as a safe travel destination! (Source) The Institute also mentioned that 158 Australian tourists were killed in foreign countries between 1995 and 2003 at a rate of 5.8 per million. Not a single Australian was killed in South Africa during that time. 93 027 tourists from Australia and New Zealand visited South Africa in 2004 alone (Source)

The scale of the cricket world cup is however a lot smaller than the expected scale of the 2010 soccer world cup. More information regarding the scale of the cricket world cup will follow soon.