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June 20 - The Confederation Cup soccer tournament is causing embarrassment to South Africa due to low fan turnout, argued the Congress of South African Trade Unions this week.
Some of the best soccer teams in the world have descended upon South Africa to take part in one of the most exciting competitions to be seen in a long time, and many have determined that this event can be seen as the dress rehearsal for the FIFA World Cup to take place next year.
Despite getting off to a good start, with the South African host team playing to a nearly full Ellis Park stadium in Johannesburg on Sunday, subsequent games have proven to have much poorer spectator turnouts.
The draw against Iraq (0-0) brought the South African team against New Zealand in Rustenburg, where they beat the Kiwis 2-0, in a predictable Confederations Cup betting outcome.
A spokesman for the trade union confederation, Patrick Craven, said in a statement: "The Congress of South African Trade Unions urgently calls upon South Africans to buy more tickets and attend the Confederations Cup matches in greater numbers. The low turnouts at some matches have been a serious embarrassment to the country and must be improved upon, if we are to demonstrate to the world our passion for soccer, and to remove any doubts about our commitment to the 2010 World Cup tournament."
The President of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, is not seeing half filled stadiums in the Confederation Cup in a good light.
"We were happy with the crowd in the stadium but not with the number of spectators for the opening game," he said. "I think they [the operators] could have done a little bit more."
Blatter called on the operators to make a greater effort to fill the stadiums that had empty seats during matches. Fans have complained that the cost of tickets to view teams such as Brazil, Spain and Italy were just too high, and this may be one issue to be looked into by the operators.
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