Statement by the City’s Executive Mayor, Patricia de Lille
City reflects on Cape Town Cup
The City of Cape Town has considered the final information within the closeout report regarding the Cape Town Cup.
Since the end of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™, the City has been working hard
to make the Cape Town Stadium a valuable asset.
This has relied on three approaches.
The first is to bring events to the stadium to make it a functioning asset.
The second is to use the stadium as a centre point for our strategy to become
the events capital of Africa.
The third is to explore more long-term solutions and scenarios according to
legislative processes.
For the past few years, the stadium has been successfully used as a site for
major events, from concerts to sporting events.
This year, the City attempted a new venture in the form of the Cape Town
Cup.
This event sought to create a tournament whereby local and international
football teams could compete against each other.
We spent over R30 million in creating the event.
We received just over R2 million in direct revenue for this and approximately
over R60 million in exposure.
While we are pleased with the destination marketing exposure, we cannot
accept such a large loss of direct revenue.
While we are confident that we followed all due legal and financial
requirements, it is clear that the underlying revenue model for the event had
flawed assumptions.
Further, it is also clear that there were shortcomings in the marketing to
attract crowds to the event.
We are sorry for these shortcomings and will do everything we can to ensure
that they do not happen again.
We are committed to making this an opportunity city that hosts major events.
We have accepted that many of these events are essentially subsidised in
some way by the City government because of their multiplier effect for the
economy.
Major events provide income for a range of service and other industries,
which in turn stimulates economic growth in the city.
We remain committed to this economic strategy and will make revisions and
changes where there have been obvious shortcomings.