Costa Blanca & The World Cup

So those real estate agents promoting property Costa del Sol and property Costa Blanca will just have to chill out for a month

AFTER MONTHS of build up and anticipation the 2010 FIFA World Cup starts today in South Africa. Football fans all over the world will be glued to their television sets for the next four weeks and many hearts will be broken as the 32 teams fight for the biggest prize in football.

This year’s tournament is the 19th FIFA World Cup and is the culmination of a qualification process that began in August 2007 which involved 204 of the 208 FIFA national teams. It is also the first time that the competition has been held on the African continent. Italy will be defending their title after they beat France in the 2006 World Cup, which was held in Germany.

ENGLAND

This is the first World Cup that does not include any teams that are qualifying for the first time and the games will be played at 10 venues around South Africa including stadiums in the cities of Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and Pretoria.

The England team is based in Rustenburg and will play their first match tomorrow (Saturday) against the USA whilst the Spanish team, which no doubt we will all be supporting should England have an early exit, is based in Potchefstroom, near Johannesburg and will play their first match against Switzerland next Tuesday, 16th June.

TEARS AND LAUGHTER

The final takes place on July 11th with the winning team bagging $30 million and in a first for the World Cup, there will also be payments made by FIFA to the domestic clubs of the players representing their national teams at the tournament. This will see a total of €26 million being paid to domestic clubs in UEFA; amounting to just over €1,000 per player per day. But before that final gets under way, there promises to be lots of highs and lows, controversial decisions, tears and laughter. And in bars all over the Costa Blanca preparations are under way for what will undoubtedly be a great festival of football. The flags and bunting have been hung, the beer has been stocked up and is chilling in the fridge and wide screen TV screens have been installed; all that is left to do is sit back and enjoy.