Football fever reigns over Expo Park
- Source: Global Times
- [09:50 June 11 2010]
- Comments
The coveted pure-gold FIFA World Cup trophy is set on display Thursday inside the Expo Park at the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai. Photo: CFP
By Ni Dandan
As football fans get their game faces on for a long night of drinking and cheering ahead, the South Africa Pavilion is working to ensure that special guests are made to feel as though they are right in on the action taking place on its home soil when the 2010 FIFA World Cup opens this evening.
The cube-shaped structure with an interior design using a rainbow of colors to signify the diversity of South African cultures will stay open until midnight to offer VIPs a live broadcast of the opening ceremony of the World Cup and the first game between Mexico and South Africa.
For the duration of the World Cup, visitors can escape crowds in the park and camp out in the pavilion, where the games will be broadcast for fans stranded at the Expo Park without their portable TVs.
"We welcome friends to come to our pavilion and enjoy the festival for football lovers for the next month," said Schoemen du Plesiss, director of the South Africa Pavilion, Thursday.
The pavilion was originally considering airing the games in 3D, but has since scrapped the idea, pleasing some visitors Thursday.
"The 3D movie Avatar made me dizzy," Fu Zhixuan, a local visitor, told the Global Times. "I think broadcasting it using normal formatting is better; the games are interesting enough as they are."
With restaurants also preparing to cash in on the influx of fans, it seems World Cup fever is also spreading throughout the park.
Italian restaurant Colabo said they plan to increase their supply of chips, beer, chicken wings and snacks, anticipating hungrier and thirstier crowds.
"We are thinking that we will also broadcast the World Cup during the evenings," Xiao Zhu, an employee at the restaurant, told the Global Times Thursday. "That will probably make us more popular amongst visiting fans."
In a similar move, Chinese restaurant South Beauty has also set up a few TVs, and plans to broadcast the games are in the pipeline.
Meanwhile, officially licensed Expo stores are also rolling up their sleeves for a piece of the pie. One of the stores located on the second-lower level of the Expo Axis said that it is placing nearly a hundred official World Cup souvenirs on its shelves today.
