Exposing FIFA's Shenanigans in South Africa

Brazil beware! FIFA is unrepentant - and poised to violate the Brazilian constitutional guarantees of inclusion for persons with disabilities as well as article 32 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities at FIFA 2014.

Read from Rolling Inspiration magazine below on for what those of us who have been discretely working "within the system" with FIFA in South Africa have long known but been politely holding from public scrutiny in order to allow FIFA  chance to save face and "do the right thing."

 

In our previous issue we reported on the number of seats available for wheelchairs at each stadium.

It has subsequently been revealed that the figures supplied were doubled up as the auditor erroneously included the tickets of the care givers in his numbers.

This means that, for example, at the Loftus Stadium in Pretoria, where FIFA stipulates a minimum number of 250 seats for wheelchairs (0.5% of the total number of seating) there are only 12 wheelchair seats per game. No wonder you couldn't buy any tickets!!!

SAFA's (South African Football Association,) spin doctor, Mr Rich Mkhondo, says that they based the seating on past attendances at South African soccer games and so adjusted the seat numbers accordingly.

How on earth can you base wheelchair tickets on previous attendance figures when there has NEVER been accessible transport nor accessible stadia? And what about the soccer fans from overseas? Where do they factor into the equation? ....

On page 115 [of FIFA's protocol documents] it states: "A specialist accessibility consultant should be consulted to determine the designs of the stadium to ensure that they comply with internationally accepted standards." SADA (South Africa Disability Alliance) recommended a specialist accessibility consultant to the LOC some time ago and, when the LOC failed to employ the services of said specialist accessibility consultant, SADA paid the bill and provided the specialist free of charge!

Despite that, the stadia do not comply with internationally accepted standards and when this issue was raised at the protest march Mr Danny Jordaan berated SADA for airing the issue in public and insisted that the issue be raised in private at a meeting scheduled for 31 March between SADA and SAFA.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Disabled fans protest lack of space at World Cup sites (cbc.ca)