Aslam Levy » WorldCup 2010

Cape Town Stadium 1st Rugby Game – Photo’s

aslam — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:40:30 +0000

On Saturday I attended the first Rugby Game at the recently opened Cape Town Stadium.
I had a “All access” Arm Band on the day and was allowed to walk around the stadium Tiers while getting some great photo’s.
I even managed to get on the field during the Main match. Let me tell you, the Stadium is breathtaking!
The Stormers pulverised the Boland Cavaliers

Below are some images that I took on the day:

The Hot Water Band providing pre-match festivities

CTT Team, Living it LOUDER!

Cape Town flags flying at Cape Town Stadium

Helen Zille enters Cape Town Stadium

The Stormers warming up

The Ball Boy looking on, aspiration in his eyes...

40 000 Fans!

Go Stormers!!!

World Cup 2010 Final Draw Seedings

aslam — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:45:02 +0000

Looks like South Africa are clear of the Big Guns for the first round of games.
Groups are decided by selecting a team from each “Pot”

From http://www.businessghana.com:

Fifa’s Organising Committee today approved the procedure for Friday’s draw which will be held in Cape Town.

The seeding was based on the October 2009 FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking.

Ghana, ranked 38th during the month of October 2009 are in Pot 3 with all the four other African qualifiers and three South American candidates.

Brazil, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Argentina and England are therefore the seven squads that join hosts South Africa as seeded teams for the Final Draw.

• Pot 2 will be composed of teams from Asia (Australia, Japan, Korea DPR, Korea Republic), North, Central America and the Caribbean (Honduras, Mexico, USA) and Oceania (New Zealand)

• Pot 3 will include teams from Africa (Algeria, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria) and South America (Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay)

• Pot 4 will have the remaining European teams (Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland)

The committee also approved the procedure for the final draw:

• hosts South Africa will be automatically positioned as A1; the other seeded teams will be drawn into the other groups B-H, but will always be in position “1” of their group

• groups will be drawn from A to H and the positions in the group will be drawn for Pots 2 to 4

• geographical criteria will also be respected, meaning that no two teams from the same confederation will be drawn in the same group (except European teams, where a maximum of two will be in a group). For example, South Africa cannot play the African teams from Pot 3 and Argentina and Brazil cannot be drawn against the three remaining South American teams.

Seedings:

Pot 1 – South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, England, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain.

Pot 2 – Australia, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Honduras, Mexico, USA, New Zealand

Pot 3 – Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay

Pot 4 – Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Switzerland

Looking Good Bafana, Looking Good
-A-

Official City Road Closures for FIFA Final Draw 4 -5 December

aslam — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:54:33 +0000

We received a copy of the official Road Closures during the Final Draw happening on Friday the 4th December.
If you work in Town please note the closures below and plan alternate routes.
For all Cape Town 2010 information vist http://www.capetown.travel/2010/

Click on the image to view at Full Size

For a behind the scenes view of the Final Draw see my inside scoop here.

-A-

Behind the Scenes – FIFA Final Draw 2010 Cape Town

aslam — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:11:08 +0000

Earlier today I went on the Media Tour of the FIFA Final Draw Venue at the CTICC along with Cape Town Tourism. It was really impressive to see the co-ordination and effort that has gone into this event. As with our tagline “Ready to welcome the world”, so too is Final Draw, as they “are ready if this had to happen tomorrow”.

The FIFA World Cup 2010 Final Draw will happen at the CTICC at 7pm on December 4th and stream video from the Long Street party at the Final draw. The Long Street Party will be pumping all day long.
For more info on the Free Party in long street that will have huge screens streaming the draw live from CTICC, check the Facebook page here.

Below are a few snaps I took with my Camera phone. The image quality is not the best but it gives a sense of the magnitude of the event.

Powerpoint slide at the Media Briefing

The Main Stage where the draw will take place

The Stage has a Baobab Tree Theme

The SABC Outside Broadcasting Unit worth Approx. $10 million

The Sony HD Production Suite

Note the HD television Feeds

Some More info on Final Draw:
- 135 Million people will watch the broadcast
- It will be live in 200 Countries and territories
- Brazil have been in every FIFA World Cup Draw

See YOU there,
-A-

200 Days to 2010 soccer worldcup Kickoff

aslam — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:19:42 +0000

It’s been a crazy busy fews weeks. The lack of fresh content on this website is indicative of that.
But this one needed to be online

Please Diarise the Cape Town Tourism 200 Days to Kickoff details:

Venue: V&A Waterfront, Ampitheatre

Date: Sunday, 22 November 2009

Time: 14h00 – 16h00pm

In celebration of 200 days to kick-off, Cape Town Tourism will be teaching the famous diski dance at the Ampitheatre, V&A Waterfront. Enjoy an afternoon of great Cape Town entertainment and stand a chance to win some CTT memorabilia in the diski dance contest. We are on the look-out for the best diski-dancer on the day! No entrance fee required.

Program:

14h00 – 14h30pm: Diski dance – teaching the diski dance and great CTT memorabilia to be won!

14h30 – 15h15pm: CODA performance

15h15 – 16h00pm: Chad Saaiman performance

South African Homeless team wins the Milan Trophy at Soccer Worldcup

aslam — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:44:21 +0000

Note: This article has been corrected as reports have come through confirming Ukraine as the World Cup winner.
The SA Team did very well in the first round and these successes put them into the group competing for the Milan Cup, and beating Romania in the quarter finals, then the USA in the semis, they took top honors by outplaying African compatriots Malawi in the final.
With the Fifa 2010 worldcup around the corner, our hopes are high for a good result from “bafana bafana”
Perhaps they should take a few lessons from the South African homeless team which lifted the trophy this week as the victorious team.

This via http://www.homelessworldcup.org

It must have been the South African song which lifts the spirits that allowed them to win 9-1 against Malawi Team. It was the first time the two teams have played, and it was a special match for the 2 African Countries.
The South African side were too sharp, too fast and skilled for Malawi. Colin Davids from SA acknowledges that he was nervous in the beginning but then focused and played well. He also acknowledges Gods role in the vicotry. “I pray to God before every game. Nothing is impossible if you believe in God.” The members of the South African team will be sad to go home as they have met so many people from so many countries.

Coach Patricio from Malawi was very pragmatic about his loss. “We are here to hav fun. We lost to our brothers. They deserved it.”

We visited them at their “training area” in Schaapkraal, Cape Town 2 months back as they prepared for Milan. Here are a few pics of that day:

The team recreational area

Here’s a video I took as well

For my original blog post on the Cape Town 2010 site click here.
The Homeless Team Arrives in Cape Town Tomorrow.
-A-

Greenpoint Stadium Visitor Centre

aslam — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:02:51 +0000

As a follow up to the Greenpoint Fan walk Blog post, this photo essay shows the displays inside the Greenpoint Visitor Centre.

The history of soccer on the Greenpoint common goes back decades and the visitor centre pays homage to the amazing teams to have won at Greenpoint. With the proposed renaming of Greenpoint Stadium to Cape Town Stadium we look forward to the next evolution of this truly iconic Cape Town landmark.

Cape Town Tourism and CTRU taking a break after the Fanwalk

Lowest step starts at 1850

How about some foosball?

3D Model of the Stadium

Great Logo!

One for Bafana, one for Madiiiba. Ooo ah, ons laat hulle daar

District 6, it's legacy is undeniable

South Africa's soccer Tradition

For more information on the Greenpoint Visitor Information Centre visit their website here.
-A-

Thabo Mbeki – I am an African. SA Tourism Video

aslam — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:16:42 +0000

A beautiful video by SA Tourism with inspiring visuals of South Africa to the voiceover of Thabo Mbeki’s “I am an African” Parliament speech.
It WILL give you goosebumps.

Arabesque, Burg Street, Cape Town

aslam — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:06:55 +0000

Me and Sue went to arabesque a few weeks ago. At the time, I googled it and was dissapointed to find out that nothing about it exists online **edit: I found their site, its http://www.arabesque-revue.com/*

So today Iwalked across the road and took a pic for those who are curious as to what Cape Town’s newest Strip Club Gentlemens club Revue Bar looks like.

They open at 7, hence the shutter in the image below

Entrance to Heaven/Hell. Depends....

If you do make some time to go and give it a try, check out the 2nd floor, it’s MUCH better.
-A-

Gay tourism is not like Hardo Gay

aslam — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:24:40 +0000

We recently sent out a survey to members of Cape Town Tourism with one of the columns titled “Gay Friendly”. They had to indicate whether they were gay friendly or not. This opened a can of worms as we debated what gay friendly meant, and what was perhaps a better terminology. My suggestion is “Gay oriented”. It is strange that there still seems to be a slightly negative perception of gays in certain areas.

I think people where afraid to classify themselves as gay friendly and then be swamped by bus loads of gay travellers. Isn’t any business good business? As with my Sex Tourism post a while back, I would like to highlight that Gay Tourism is a valuable market segment too. Gay Couples tend to have more disposable income; this can be attributed to a number of reasons, though a primary factor being that they tend not to have children.

I think all accommodations should be classified as Gay friendly, and those with gay themed tours be filed as “Gay oriented”. Cape Town is known as the gay capital of South Arica, isn’t it time to embrace that? Perhaps the more conservative amongst us are afraid of the exaggerated gay sterotypes such as Hardo Gay. See Below

Hardo Gay CD Cover

For a 100% straight guy, I laughed my socks off at Hardo Gay. You like it too?
-A-