All reports by Ramatsiyi Moholoa

All reports by Ramatsiyi Moholoa

The Local Organising Committee is visiting all the 2009 Confederations Cup host cities to inspect their readiness for the tournament.

This comes after Fifa's 30-member technical team inspected the venues three weeks ago where they said they were happy with the overall readiness of the country.

However, Fifa said they were concerned about the state of affairs in Mangaung and Tshwane, especially around logistical issues.

Danny Jordaan, the LOC's chief executive, said they were satisfied with the progress for the "Festival of Champions".

"Generally, the state of readiness in the country is incredible, we will soon (November 23) be starting with the selling of tickets for the tournament.

"We have to make sure that the issue of seats is addressed in the venues, it is one of the main focus of our inspection tour."

Jordaan said they decided to start with the Confederation Cup venues with the draw on November 22.

"For now everything is going according to plans with the preparations for the World Cup.

"The only issue that we are worried about is the costs,' he said.

"The state of affairs in the world economic market is also a cause for concern, but it was good that we [the LOC board] decided to fix the price of the tickets. Otherwise tickets would be well over R100 today."

The LOC executive committee's inspection tour started in Mangaung last Friday with a visit to Free State Stadium.

Yesterday, the Irvin Khoza-led executive committee members were in Tshwane to assess the progress of the upgrade to Loftus Stadium.

Tomorrow the executive committee will visit Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Phokeng. As for Ellis Park Stadium, Jordaan said the upgrading was going well.

Besides Khoza and Jordaan, other members of the team are Essop Pahad, Sydney Mufamadi, Jabu Moleketi and Makhenkesi Stofile.