Doubts grow over South Africa as host

By Oliver Brown in Cape Town

In the lush surrounds of Cape Town's Metropolitan golf club, you are hard pressed to find signs of South Africa's struggle to be ready for the next World Cup. For on these fairways an auspicious 'sod-turning' ceremony is being held, to mark the first visible step in the creation of the city's 68,000-seat Green Point Stadium. But, as the speeches and blessings drag on, one question becomes inescapable. In three years' time, this site will host one of the tournament's semi-finals, so should there not, by now, be more than a spade in the ground?...

But the confidence of the building contractors appears undiminished. Sean Flanagan, executive director of Murray & Roberts - one half of the consortium awarded the tender for Green Point - is even emboldened to criticise British examples of construction headaches. Both the Millennium Stadium and Wembley have been, he claims, "spectacular failures" in terms of the substantial losses incurred by contractors John Laing and Multiplex....