A Date for the 2010 Vodacom Durban July

A tradition of over 100 years will be broken in 2010 when Africa’s greatest horseracing event, the Vodacom Durban July, moves from its traditional slot of the first Saturday in July to the last Saturday of the month. To avoid a clash with the World Cup as it builds to a climax and also to comply with FIFA regulations governing World Cup host cities, Gold Circle, the company that runs horse racing in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape, decided to move next year’s Vodacom Durban July to the last Saturday of the month, July 31.



Gold Circle’s Event Marketing Manager, Ken Tweddell said, “While acknowledging the importance of the Soccer World Cup we must realize that the Vodacom Durban July is the African continent’s pre-eminent horseracing event and is worthy of its own place in the sun, away from the extreme hype of the World Cup. Its new date will allow sufficient separation between the two events to afford the ‘July’ the prominence it deserves.”



This change of dates will necessitate a shuffling of the racing programme for Champions Season and new dates for the Gold Cup and the Champions Cup will be announced shortly. Other feature races that form part of Champions Season will also be repositioned to make for a smooth racing programme through to the end of the racing season.



“The Soccer World Cup is billed as the ‘Greatest Show on Earth’ and forced us into a rethink about the Champions Season and the Vodacom Durban July in particular,” said Gold Circle’s Chief Operating Officer, Graeme Hawkins.



“While we need to maximise the opportunities afforded us by the expected influx of a large number of foreign visitors, it makes no sense for the Vodacom Durban July to clash with World Cup fixtures and indeed the city’s administrators who are bound by FIFA World Cup contracts.”



Enzo Scarcella, Vodacom’s Managing Executive for Marketing commented, “The change in dates will enable Vodacom to effectively pay homage to its status as the Greatest Supporter of South African supporters; to celebrate with soccer fans across the country, the company’s sponsorship of SAFA and Bafana Bafana as well as ensure that supporters of this horseracing spectacular, receive their fair share of indulgence”.



A final decision on the Champions Season and national racing fixtures programme will be made after the draws for the Group stages of the World Cup have been made on Friday, December 4.





Issued by:

Graeme Hawkins

Chief Operating Officer

should have moved the 2010 soccer..
will there be more people comming than those that were here for the confederations cup....

how many more teams..
the same lot + a few more unknown teams...???

all I remember were the Egyptians..got robbed..but cannot complain..they were married guys...

my opinion...think there are more people at the JULY DAY race track than we will have visitors for all the soccer..
they have been here for the confederation cup...think they will come again..
maybe the EGYPTIANS..to get value for money...

There will be many, many times more visitors than for the Confed Cup. How many people even knew the Confed Cup was on? The World Cup is 32 teams, if I'm not mistaken, while the Confed Cup was 8.

July Day will get what, 50 000 people? That's a fraction of what the World Cup will attract.

It's a figment of the SOCCER LOC and FIFA imagination..

They are already shocked..when they saw the numbers for the CONFED CUP..

started 4 years ago on
800,000 visitors
then 500,000 visitors
then 300,000 to 400,000 visitors
then 250,000 visitors when the IRISH RUGBY was on..
now .....

might have 50,000 overseas visitors and 500,000 locals with free tickets..

TV guys..TV..the guys watch it on TV,,,

ideally you would want the english to be playing in Durban around the time of the July. A lot of English fans would end up at the track and boost turnover and experience AQfricas greatest race, Im sure

By now the airline tickets would have been sold out....
or are the fans swimming from the UK..

hello...hello..they are not comming...
so we started giving away the free tickets..

besides the chinese mafia has already sold out all the seats at 10% of the price..

Andre, once countries know that they have qualified, final qualifications this week, then people will start booking and then once the actual draw is made in December then the surge will start. The only problem with having the world cup in SA is distance. When the World Cup is played in Europe fans travel because of the small distances between the host country and your own country. I firmly believe that it will be a success and that SA will get the visitors that the desire.

The Idea was, like Europe, the fans in Africa would travel accross border.
Spoornet trains runs up to dar es salaam, and the worry was, that the fans could jump the empty trucks returning to RSA.

hence the rationalisation went like this at the time

............................800,000,000 people in africa
10% know about the soccer....80,000,000 know about soccer
10% will attemp to watch......8,000,000 attempt to watch
10% will attempt to vivsit SA...800,000 attempt to visit SA


also used to calculate the booze
$100 x 800,000 for the month = $80,000,000 x R8 = R640,000,000..better we buy MILLER SAB shares..
Gambling calculated at $160 x 800,000 = too much for our bookies...

the FED CUP...the numbers were far...far...far..below expectations..

still hope they make a success!

I went to the football world cup in France in 1998 with a couple of English fans. You have not seen anything like it, fighting for no apparent reason with anybody even the English were fighting against each other. In 2007 I went back to France for the Rugby world Cup. I sat amongst plenty of English fans when we beat them 36-0. You know what they did to me? Shook my hand and slapped my back. Big difference between football and rugby fans. I hope SA are ready for the fights.

might not win the fights..but they better watch their shoes...
these guys love UK shoes..

spineless bastards sold out to fifa. just shows you how "important" racing is when tradition gives way....

i cant see how they would do this in the UK

Have a few plans to bring the soccer visitors into racing, did the same with the rugby tour and the guys could not believe the facilities we had basically for free in comparison, massive opportunity for new owners.

imvho