Top facts about Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, 2010 FIFA World Cup venue

The Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium is a soccer and rugby union stadium located in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape,

. It is to be said that Eastern Cape had by no means a magnificent world-class soccer stadium earlier than the construction of Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Since the 2010 FIFA World Cup, this stadium has turned out to be the home to the EP Kings, Southern Kings, and currently Chippa United, being the venue of several competitions, fixtures, and musical performances.

As part of the amazing top facts about Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, one should indicate that it was designed to draw a lot of resemblance to a gigantic flower as it is recognized as a protea by most folk, along with the petal-like panels to make up the open roof.

Since the stadium is situated beside North End Lake, it has sublime scenery that sets it apart from other stadiums all over the world to the extent that you feel as though the stadium is raised from the edge of the lake like a flower and the reflection of the stadium in the water makes it all the more spectacular.

Apart from the aesthetics, the structure of the stadium is adjusted to local climate conditions in so far as to protect the audiences both against the sunlight and especially against regular, intense onshore winds, while almost every technical installation such as the sound system and lighting, and also the maintenance walkway, are incorporated into the roof.

Moreover, because the stadium is located in both industrial and residential area, there are Major highways that are just minutes away, so as to make it very convenient.

It goes without saying that many major hotels and guest houses are within about 15 minutes drive from the stadium making it quite a desirable place to join in all sense of the words.

Top facts about Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, 2010 FIFA World Cup venue

Here we have probed into everything there is to know in line with Top facts about Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.

Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium History

The city of Port Elizabeth did not have a huge football facility, because, under the apartheid government, football was not given much funding.

Soccer clubs in the city had to use smaller-scale venues all through the city. Before the construction of this stadium, most big

were held on the EPRU Stadium, the city's rugby ground.

But, the EPRU Stadium was regularly problematic for football, due to the fact that it generally hosts rugby matches, thereby the playing ground was not that much standardized.

When Port Elizabeth was selected as the host of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the city decided against upgrading the EPRU Stadium in the cope of the fact that it might have been hard to almost absolutely rebuild it according to FIFA requirements. Therefore the city decided to construct a brand new, multipurpose stadium.

Inevitably, many speculated about the status of stadium construction in the run-up to the 2010 FIFA World Cup, with the requirement that every one of the FIFA World Cup host stadiums was required to be finished by January 2010.

The Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium was the first of 5 new stadiums that just started to be constructed. Cape Town, Durban, Polokwane and Nelspruit are the remainder of those five stadiums.

The stadium is recognised by the administrative region in which the stadium is situated, the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, while this name is also called after Nelson Mandela, the former President of South Africa.

The Nelson Mandela Bay area is part of the city of Port Elizabeth, the towns of Uitenhage and Despatch, in addition to smaller settlements.

The stadium is occasionally incorrectly referred to as the 'Nelson Mandela Stadium' in the media. This may be confusing, since a stadium with this name, Nelson Mandela Stadium exists in Kampala, Uganda.

Once in a while, it is also mistakenly claimed that the stadium is called after Mandela, in place of the urban vicinity named in his honour.

Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium Design

While the Department of Public Works' National Construction Week Programme designed the stadium in 2006, students from Holy Cross High School Thina Dlulane, Yandisa Dalamba, Inga Ngalonkulu and Siyabonga Nyezi formed Umtata.

After that Public Work delegates reviewed their design in the Mahlamba Ndlopfu Presidency House, it also went on to be the inspiring winning designed prototype concept.

Our

top facts about Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium

would be incomplete without suggesting that the stadium has a completely incredible roof structure as well as sublime scenery over the North End Lake.

The roof is composed of a chain of white 'petals' making it resemble a flower. This is the reason behind the stadium's nickname, The Protea.

Its building is about 40m high including six levels on the western side along with 5 on each of the north, south and east stands. Architectural Design Associates(Pty)Ltd and Dominic Bonnesse Architects cc were behind its major architectural project.

Its three entry gates are placed at the northern, southern and eastern sides of the stadium, the western side of the stadium ending in the North End Lake.

These gates are consisted of gate A-B, in Milner Avenue, gate B-C, in Prince Alfred Road, and gate C-D in Fettes Road.

Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium Facilities

While the stadium has 46,000 seats, there were also 4,000 extra seats, extended temporarily for the 2010 FIFA

, being of varied shades, from light orange to dark red.

The seats are randomly arranged in order to both make it appear full at all times and to make those seats that were replaced because of sun damage, less conspicuous.

It could be regarded as one of the

top facts about Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium

that it has facilities like 49 hospitality suites, two business lounges, a gymnasium, and lecture and function rooms as well as two conference rooms located on the first level, accommodating 200 people.

Moreover, four ramps for easy wheelchair access, three VIP/VVIP lifts, two in the West Stand and one in the East Stand, along with four service lifts, two on the west and two on the east of the stadium are all among some of the other facilities.

Not to mention that four extra lifts are devised for the legacy phase, while the stadium has also 32 turnstiles and colour-coded gates on level 2 for audiences to reach their seats and four ramps leading up from level 2 to level 5.

Two giant viewing screens (12.7m x 7.2m) are installed for live coverage of the activities on the field and an overall 74 toilet blocks – 36 blocks on level 2 – 4 blocks on level 3 – 14 blocks on level 4 and 20 blocks on level 5 are located at the stadium.

There are five parking zones inside the stadium so as to provide a total of 500 parking spaces used by working staff, anchor tenants, event organisers as well as hospitality guests.

Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium Pitch

The playing surface of the stadium is composed of natural grass being grown off-site, in the St Albans area. But those areas around the pitch are from artificial turf.

The original field was a blend of kikuyu grass and ryegrass, yet for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the field was made up thoroughly of ryegrass.

Even after the World Cup, a Desso GrassMaster system was established, because of the intense workload of being the host of both soccer and rugby matches.

The design of the field made it in a way to accommodate both soccer and rugby, while a group of 5 people works day and night to make sure of the playing surface quality.

With the employment of a lighting system, it is guaranteed that all grass on the

grows properly while in order to create shadow in particular areas of the pitch in the cope of the stadium special roof, a unit with 6 1,000 watt bulbs is operated.

In so far as to use it for soccer, the field is marked at the FIFA authorized dimensions of 105m by 68m and for its rugby usage, it is marked at 100 m long by 70 m wide, having two 10 m by 70 m 'in-goal areas' behind the posts too.

Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium Construction 

The stadium was constructed by a consortium made up of Ibhayi JV. on the location of the old Parks Rugby Club, and the Prince Alfred Park.

The stadium roof material has been a blend of aluminium cladding, along with a membrane material called polytetraflurethylene (PTFE), which is a coated glass-fibre fabric and steel superstructure.

An

company established its tensile structure while a total length of 21,000 m of piles were installed and 138,000 m3. materials were excavated.

The construction of this stadium has been very profitable for the local building industry. The implementation of this massive, fast track project, led several local role players to a new scale of development, letting them bring benefit to the local construction industry now and in the future.

Comprehensive use of local suppliers as well as employing experts that were related to the international specialists, guaranteed sufficient skills transfer.

It is to be said that an overall 6,800 jobs were created for its construction, while its development is believed to uplift and renew the superb residential and commercial area of North End and the main routes ending to the stadium.

Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium Financing

While the initial estimates deemed the cost of the stadium to be R895 million, the city of Port Elizabeth was set to pay R 95 million.

Through an informal agreement on World Cup stadium funding,  local municipalities should pay 10% of costs, provincial government 20% and national treasury should pay the remaining 70%.

Just like the other

in South Africa, construction costs for the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium skyrocketed considerably.

That is to say, its cost finally reached the whooping amount of R 2.065 billion from the initial estimated cost of R 711 million in June 2006 and then to R 1.5 billion in May 2008.

As a result, from the eventual cost of R 2.1 billion for building the stadium, the city has already paid R 336 million and still is liable to pay a shortfall of R 261 million.

But, if the shortfalls are estimated on the basis of 10-20-70 split, then the national government may still owe the city R 70.5 million and provincial government R 191 million, this is while the national treasury has paid R 1.375 billion, or 66.5% of the stadium's cost until now.

Yet, the national treasury has announced that they will not provide any more funds to World Cup stadiums. Unfortunately, it seems as though Port Elizabeth residents are doomed to pay the shortfall through larger rates increases.

Since there would be an additional 2% increase in property rates, an additional 1% increase in water tariffs and sanitation and refuse rates, as well as an additional 4% increase in electricity tariffs.

Such serious repercussions would be felt for the newly constructed stadiums in the 2022 FIFA World Cup that is set to occur in Qatar. Stay tuned to Sportmob's next articles to know more about these controversies.

Even worse than that, its running costs are estimated to be R18 million per year and as of 2010, the stadiums operating company, Access Facilities and Leisure Management, were assumed to break even by 2012.

Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium Post-World Cup usage

The Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium is currently the home ground to EP Kings, Southern Kings as well as Chippa United. The Southern Kings were among the Super Rugby Competition in 2013, yet they were later relegated.

The stadium also has been the host of Springbok test matches and Bafana Bafana matches. Moreover, it was the host of the 2011 Tri Nations match between the Springboks and New Zealand.

In 2011 a leg of the Vodacom Challenge was held at the stadium as it occurred in 2009, while a whopping number of 45,800 spectators joined to watch the showdown between the country's top two PSL teams.

Furthermore, the right of hosting The South African leg of the IRB Sevens World Series was given to Port Elizabeth and therefore the stadium was set to hold the event from 2011 forward.

Among

Top facts about Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium

, it is notable to notify you that it hosted the 2013

too.

But South Africa had initially the bid to host the 2015 edition and had won rights to the 2017 edition. Yet, due to the Libyan Civil War in 2011, this country which was set to be the host In 2013, swapped dates with South Africa.

In addition, Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium would be utilized in the upcoming bids for South Africa to be the host of the Rugby World Cup.

Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium Transport

The stadium is situated beside the city's new BRT network. At the moment, the special lanes for the buses have been constructed.

Once their construction would be finished, the BRT buses will ferry people to and from the stadium on game days. The major bus station servicing the stadium will be placed in Harrower Road.

There would be routes to the stadium from the airport, fan park and the seaside front. Along with the BRT network, there would be several 'park and ride' areas.

These would be positioned at King's Beach, St George's Park and Andrew Rabie High School. There may also be a 'park and walks' from Cilliè High School and Dr. Viljoen Primary School.

There will also be match day train services to the North End train station, which is placed approximately 1.3 km from the stadium.

While the network continues to be being constructed, the Algoa Bus Company has temporarily installed bus stops in the surrounding streets. These are utilized on game days, to offer public transport till the completion of the BRT network.

Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium Momentous Events

The stadium was initially set to be one of 5 stadia to be used in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup and the only newly built stadium in the event.

The remaining 4 stadiums for use were Ellis Park Stadium, Loftus Versfeld Stadium, Royal Bafokeng Stadium and Free State Stadium. The 4

were already constructed and simply were upgraded for the Confederations Cup.

On 8 July 2008, it was revealed that the stadium had been eliminated from those stadiums that would host the 2009 Confederations Cup, due to the fact that it was thought that the stadium would no longer be utterly prepared on time.

Yet, surprising as it may seem, the stadium turned out to be the first newly constructed 2010 stadium to be finished.

Likewise, on 4 July 2009, it became the host of the 2009 version of the Premier's Cup. Supersport United, Kaizer Chiefs, Bloemfontein Celtic, and Bay United were among the team that competed at the tournament while the number of 20,000 spectators attended the stadium watching the event.

Then on 23 July 2009, it became the venue of a leg of the 2009 Vodacom Challenge including a match between Orlando Pirates and the Kaizer Chief in which 30,000 audiences were watching the Kaizer Chiefs 4–3 triumph on penalties, following that it was ended 1–1.

Afterwards, Kaizer Chiefs coped with

in the very last match of the challenge.

On 9 August 2009, (Women's Day in South Africa) a special double-header of games was held at the stadium while it was coupled with a performance of women musical acts for celebrating Women's Day.

Among the other top facts about Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium that is in line with the momentous event being held at it, it is worth mentioning that on 14 November 2009, the stadium was the hosting venue of its first international football match.

It was a friendly match between Bafana Bafana and Japan that was occurred at the stadium with the presence of 44,000 crowds watching it as it eventually ended up in a 0_0 draw.

Moreover, on 20 November 2009, it hosted its first Premier Soccer League game, since no other venue was available in the Western Cape because of World Cup renovations while a total number of 20,000 spectators attended to watch Kaizer Chiefs 1–0 victory over the host, Santos F.C. in controversial fashion.

Furthermore, the stadium was the venue of eight games at the time of the 2010 FIFA World Cup tournament as it hosted 5 group games, in addition to a round of 16 games, a quarterfinal and the 3rd/4th playoff.

Finally, eight games of the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations tournament were held at the stadium including 6 organization games as well as a quarterfinal and the 3rd/4th playoff.

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