Great to hear such procedures were in place for the 2010 world cup. I'm sure South Africa do step it up & it would still be a terrific event. But the security in Ireland I'm sure would be equally as good, without having to worry about petty crime either. I went to both the 2015 RWC & the 2016 Euro's football tournament & nothing went wrong apart from Russian hooligans in Marseilles. To try and use terrorism as a means of deflecting the world cup to South Africa is pretty ridiculous & doesn't add up either. Africa is home to a large number of Islamic extremist groups & would have far more of an easier time getting to South Africa than into Ireland with any dangerous materials, bombs or weapons.
That may be true, but South Africa is one of the countries with the most diverse groups of religions, where everyone has the freedom to adopt whichever religion they wish. We have Christians, Muslims, Atheists, Rastafarians, Pastafarians, Buddhists, Jews, etc. Yet we don't have those extremists here.
groundhog the entire argument about terroism is stupid, what the chances of a terrorism attack in country of any of the 6 nations even occuring during the tournament? (let alone being involved in one)? I think France is most likely and the chances there are still slim. Those of us who don't freak out every time it happens remember a time when the IRA were an almost daily threat.
Of course it is stupid. But so is the whole discussion about crime in SA. we are talking about worst-case scenarios here. I have lived in SA my whole life (32 years) and have been to plenty of sports matches in SA and not once have I been a victim of a crime. And where I live, there has never been a break-in or anything crime-related happening there in the past 5 years since I moved there.
There is always the possibility of it happening to you, and the only reason I used the terrorism-scenario, is that just like you see and hear about the crime in SA, so too do we see and hear about the bombings and terrorist acts happening in Europe and Britain. And that is why we mention it with regards to Ireland and France.
Fact is, that there could be terrorist plans for SA in the future, just like there could be a crime-spree in Ireland. We just don't know.
^this its why I think the NH 3 times in a row is a completely false argument as it suggests 6 nations teams benefit. I think its fair to say not SANZAR 3 times in a row.
by that logic we should then rather put SA with Europe, Argentina and the Americas on their own and have Australia/New Zealand/PI & Japan grouped together by time zones. It would be more economical for South Africans to fly to Europe as it's straight up North, with no jetlag. Whereas a flight to Japan is at least 20 hours, with Stop Overs, and a lot of Jetlag.
And since we are talking economics, it would be for all the fans much cheaper and economically viable to come to SA. Our Currency exchange rate is making it cheaper and cheaper for tourists to come here. Especially now since we are now on Junk Status.
