the 90 Minutes for Madiba Welcome Dinner, Cape Town
17 July 2007
I had to come tonight because the Mayor of Cape Town Helen Zille had invited
me. She invited us, for a wonderful dinner for music and for those who do, for
some wine. Now this is a very important and significant invitation because the
mayor does not like dinners and food and wine and all of those things. She uses
tax payers' money for other things, so when she invited me I said I have to see
this, and that is why I am here.
So Helen, thank you very much for breaking your own policies and we look for
these kinds of contradictions when we come to different parties. But I knew
that something significant must be happening to make her change her mind like
that, but who can refuse to party when Nelson Mandela is going to be 89
tomorrow? I think that is enough reason to break her policies.
I want to say that this is going to be a wonderful way in which Cape Town
and the Western Cape and hopefully all South Africa will tomorrow say happy
birthday Madiba. May you have many more and may you enjoy the rest that you
deserve. I must say, Cape Town is often not seen as a soccer city by the way in
which we sometimes don not fill the stands.
I am told that the ticket sales are already at just under 30 000 and that
was by this afternoon. I want to say that we it must be significant because we
have wonderful people here. We have Jack Warner, vice president of Federation
International Football Association (Fifa), Jerome Champagne, Danny Jordan and
many other officials from Fifa. This is also an occasion, for Cape Town, South
Africa and Africa to say to them thank you very much for making sure that there
is at last an African world cup looming in 2010.
We had to fight hard for it but its happening and we are going to make it
the most stunning success of all world cups and so that is a promise that we
are making. Mr Warner, thank you very much for your faith in Cape Town, in
South Africa and the African continent and we are hoping that this is the first
of many.
I also want to say, particularly to Jerome Champaign, at a time when we did
not believe in ourselves, in Cape Town, you believed in us. You said Cape Town
must stay in the World Cup together with Sep Batter must stay in the world cup
for as long as possible. Today a brilliant, beautiful sometimes disputed
stadium is coming out of the ground. Danny Jordan and I met the people who
really want the world cup here and there are thousands of them and the polls
are saying that 70% of Capetonians want the stadiums, want the world cup here
and we are just forward and tomorrow night we will prove that all of you are
right, and thank you very much for your faith in us.
And then if Madiba is not enough and if Jack Warner is not enough, Pele must
be sufficient reason for a mayor to change her policies. How can we refuse to
give a party if Pele is in town? This is a legend that we often were not able
to see because our past, and here we see him as handsome as ever, as humble as
ever, but we are hoping to see whether he plays as well tomorrow.
So Pele, welcome to Cape Town thank you very much for being here. We have
got Pele, George Wier, Samuel Eto, I mean has his fan club here in Cape Town,
did you see outside there? Now that something stunning we thought that they
were waiting for the mayor, but no, for Samuel. So I think this is a
significant night when all of us come down to earth because there are bigger
people than us in the world.
Then there are the South Africans, Lucas Radebe, Philemon Masinga and Mark
Fish. Now I think that this is where we are going to see our best people
playing tomorrow. That is all I wanted to say. If this is what World Cup 2010
can be like, then roll on 2010. And Madam Mayor if between your party and my
party we can agree that you can still be mayor by 2010, you must agree that I
must also be a premier by 2010.
Thank you very much.
Issued by: Office of the Premier, Western Cape Provincial Government
17 July 2007
Source: Western Cape Provincial Government (http://www.capegateway.gov.za)
