Danny Jordaan (File)

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Mpumalanga - The Mbombela stadium in Nelspruit will be ready for the 2010 Soccer World Cup in June, chief executive officer of the organising committee, Danny Jordaan said on Sunday.

Jordaan said the stadium will be ready despite the pitch being pitch being removed stripped on two occasions since the beginning of construction.

The pitch currently shows nothing but fertiliser just a few months before the start of the World Cup.

He was addressing about 120 local and international media who have embarked on a week long tour with the FIFA delegation to mark the 100 days to kick-off of the World Cup.

"The process is nearly complete... I'm more than confident that it will be finished before the tournament," he said.

Out of all the stadiums visited so far, Mbombela was the one that was lagging behind with the pitch still incomplete.

Richard Hayden, an expert from the United Kingdom Sports Turf Research Institute, whom Jordan referred to as "one of the best in the world" has since been appointed to fix the pitch. In the UK, Hayden said, pitches were being stripped every five weeks.

Hayden said the R1.2 billion Mbombela stadium can have a state of the art pitch "in about seven weeks".

FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke said "it was better to remove the pitch" because it wasn't completely satisfactory.

"The pitch installed was potentially a very good pitch but a little extra wasn't there, hence the decision to remove it and install another one.

When we came here last year, the mandate was to provide and work out how South Africa will provide not good pitches, but great ones," said Valcke.

"In seven or eight weeks there will be a state of the art pitch... the weather is kind to us here." The new pitch will be resealed by next week.

There will be no match fixtures at the stadium before kick-off.

Chairperson of the parliamentary committee on sport, Butana Komphela, said the aim was to create a model city of excellence without compromising anything.

"We want a pitch of high quality," he said despite this having had an impact on some activities that were intended for the stadium.

"A quality pitch surpasses any shortcoming," he added.

Gauteng, Bloemfontein, Polokwane also promised the world a spectacular World Cup while echoing similar statements of readiness. The tour will end off on March 3 after a Gala dinner in Durban to be attended by deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe.