Michael Palmer
25 July 2006

"How can you expect a country such as Australia, which happens to not be a soccer country, to prepare for an event such as the soccer World Cup in a space of less than four years?"

Michael Palmer
2 July 2006

"That's absolutely untrue, 100 percent. There's no contingency plan at all. Someone's made that up. The president of Fifa, Sepp Blatter, has spent years ensuring the event goes to Africa, Fifa has an office and employees in South Africa and there have been over 60 South Africans on Fifa observer programmes at Germany 2006. Only to then take the event somewhere else? We absolutely, categorically deny it, we won't even discuss it. It just genuinely is not true." the head of Fifa's South African office, Michael Palmer, told The Star on Sunday.

21 July 2006

FIFA Defends S Africa for Soccer