Horrible PR move by World Cup 2010 Organizing Committee

Most of the talk surrounding the 2010 World Cup these days centers around how bad things are going. This might not be fair, however the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) did not make things any better today.

News media from around the world were told there would be a press conference at '1pm sharp' today to discuss the progress that has been made. However, 1pm came and nobody from the LOC was there. Time kept moving along and still no LOC members were there.

After waiting 70-minutes the media staged a walk out en bloc.

"We have become accustomed to this kind of thick-skinned arrogance and disrespect towards the media," said one local soccer journalist, "but we had hoped matters would change once the World Cup operation swung into gear.

"Apparently this is not the case," he added.

Representatives from the LOC's marketing company were asked were the board members were and if they were 'having lunch', but the rep said they could not say "because we don't know ourselves exactly what is happening."

There were later suggestions that the delay was the result of very important issues that needed to be resolved before the press conference.

"But why didn't they take this into consideration before the haphazard organization took place?" was a question that remained unanswered.

'Similar confusion emerged a month ago before the LOC's initial briefing on how the organization of the World Cup was progressing, with half the media only informed of the session at the last-minute and the other half not at all.

"This kind of shortcoming will not happen again," said Khoza at the time.'

It is events like this that will keep the 'South Africa is failing' narrative alive. Very simply put, you should never miss a called press conference. Even if someone just stands up and says, "We are not yet ready to make a big announcement, but we will soon", you have done better then not showing up at all.

These same media people that they pissed off today still have deadlines they need to make regarding stories about the World Cup. With total confusion ruling the day, guess what all those stories are going to be about?

Mark this one as another bad day for the South African World Cup.