AN AVERAGE of 50 murders are committed each day in South Africa, a nation which has one of the highest crime rates. But Windsor John Paul is adamant that security will not be compromised during the World Cup.

“There will be 41,000 officers deployed for the 2010 World Cup. A lot of money has been spent for reinforcements and equipment just to ensure that the World Cup will be free of any security threats,“ said Windsor.

Among the equipment are new helicopters, unmanned aircraft, 10 water cannons, 100 BMWs for highway patrol, mobile command vehicles, body armour and other crowd management resources such as hi-tech bomb disposal equipment.

There will also be four mobile command centres with hi-tech monitoring equipment to receive live footage from airplanes and other cameras. Windsor stressed the organisers learnt from the Confederations Cup that there were other issues to be addressed.

“The Confeds revealed there are still some minor things which left much to be desired. We realised the mindset of Africans has to be changed. They kept coming to the stadiums just before kickoff and expected to get into the stadium straightaway,” said Windsor.

“And they are not used to stadium seats being numbered. They would take a seat that was not occupied without actually following the seat number on their tickets. During the Confeds, it was almost always South African spectators and so the attitude was, give and take.

“That’s the way it is in Africa, it’s natural behaviour. But during the World Cup, there will be the Europeans, who are a lot more disciplined where these matters are concerned — they will want the seat they paid for and we don’t want that to become a problem.

“There’re very thorough security checks, similar to the airport routine, which take place before fans are granted permission into the stadium. It’s a protocol that must be obeyed for security’s sake.”

In addition, there is a need to increase the frequency of the shuttle vans which transport the fans between the stadium and the carparks about two kilometres away. Private cars are not allowed in the stadium vicinity.

“So now, the budget becomes bigger with the requirement to increase the number of shuttle vans,” added Windsor.

Windsor poured cold water on speculation that bookies played a role during the Confederations Cup which saw some dubious match results like when European champions Spain lost 2-0 to the United States.

“We have an early warning system that’s linked to all the betting agencies. There was never a red flag. So, the matter of match-fixing did not arise,” said Windsor.