Tuesday, 24 November 2009:
The choice of Sydney as a venue for a FIFA-organised fan park during the 2010 World Cup is a positive sign in Australia's bid to host the event, NSW Premier Nathan Rees says.
Sydney has been selected as one of seven sites worldwide for a official FIFA Fan Fest site during the World Cup finals in South Africa.
The other cities selected are London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro as well as all nine host cities in South Africa.
The Sydney site at Darling Harbour is expected to attract 30,000 fans a night, with all 64 matches of the tournament to be shown live on giant screens.
The coverage of the matches will be complimented with pre-match and post match concerts and other performances.
The site will also be linked to other live sites across the globe and the official broadcast coverage which will have a cumulative audience for the 64 games of about 30 billion people in 214 countries.
The exposure will be invaluable as Australia bids to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals.
Mr Rees said the choice of Sydney was a boost for the bid with five of the other live site cities - London, Paris, Rome and Berlin - having previously hosted the World Cup final.
"We view this as a positive sign," Mr Rees told reporters.
"Five of the other cities have hosted a World Cup final. Rio is likely to host the World Cup final in 2014.
"We don't want to raise expectations too high but we can only interpret it as a positive sign."
The Fan Fest sites in 12 German cities when it hosted the 2006 World Cup recorded a cumulative audience of 18 million people - six times the total match attendances.
The 2010 World Cup will be the first time the Fan Fest concept has been taken internationally.
Entrance into the live site in Sydney will be free for the entire tournament, which runs between June 11 and July 11.
