The stadium that will be used for the opening mach of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Soccer City near Nasrec, is about 92% complete, Grinaker-LTA/Interbeton Soccer City joint-venture project director Mike Moody said on Wednesday.

“The stadium construction is progressing well and ready for handover in October. We are busy with touch-ups in the interior and all the externals such as parking and the roads will be finished in December, in time for January 2010 completion deadline,” he said.

During his State of the Nation address on Wednesday, President Jacob Zuma cited the 2010 FIFA soccer World Cup as one of the biggest infrastructure investment projects.

“We have, as government and the nation at large, pledged that the World Cup will leave a proud legacy from which our children and our communities will benefit for many years to come. We are on track to meet all our obligations and are determined to give the world the best World Cup ever,” declared Zuma.

Moody said during a site visit that the construction of Soccer City only cost one quarter of what it did to build the new Wembley football stadium in London.

“What they did in five years, we are doing in two.”

Once completed, the 94 000-seater Soccer City will be the biggest stadium ever built for any soccer World Cup event and will be by far the biggest in Africa.

“To build the stadium, we used 80 000 m³ of concrete, about ten tons of reinforcement steel, 8,5-million bricks and 7 100 t of structural steel and a double layer of fabric roof,” Moody notes.

Cement producer Pretoria Portland Cement will have supplied 25 000 t (23 000 t ready mix and 2 000 t ad hoc) of cement for the construction of the stadium, accounting for more than 90% of the stadium’s concrete construction requirement.

According to Moody, Soccer City has contributed about R512-million worth of procurement investments to black economic-empowerment and a total of 4 700 job opportunities for the local community.

The stadium will have three tiers of seating, 230 private boxes, two VIP suites, a large media section with 2 451 seats and eight TV presentation studious, underground parking for 4 055 cars, 32 turnstiles and 71 concession kiosks.