Al-Ahram Weekly

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 3:11pm on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

FIFA Head Says Egypt Could Host World Cup

Al-Ahram Weekly reported in its January 21-27, 2010 issue:

"Egypt can one day host the big event, the World Cup," FIFA President Joseph Blatter said in an exclusive interview. "In 1997, we held the Executive Committee meeting in Egypt and it is another country in Africa which can easily organise a World Cup. Have you seen how they have managed to organise the U20 World Cup. It went on so smoothly with no problems. Everybody was happy.

"Egypt is such a cultured and big country. Even in primary school in my mountain schools when you speak about cultured and historical countries, you study Egypt."

Broadcasting TV rights has become a major concern of football lovers around the world. Blatter has always said that football is for the people and that it is their right to watch at least four World Cup matches on their public TV: the opening, two semi- finals and the final.

"I know there were problems with every World Cup and I heard about the case of the Africa Cup of Nations in the North Africa region. But I confirm that the world will watch these matches on free TV in countries where we have contracts with some stations who offer these matches for free TV and with most of the countries, we have these contracts.

"As for the countries who are taking part in the World Cup, the people will have the chance to watch all their team's matches in the World Cup in addition to these four matches. We are in Africa now and are offering a free signal to some countries. Everybody who has a TV set can see not only his matches, but also all the other matches."

The full story:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2010/982/sp4.htm