Fahmy honoured by Final role

The 62 matches played since the beginning of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™ have certainly lived up to expectations. Goals, action, suspense and stars have all been on show. All that remains is for either the Netherlands or Spain to be crowned world champions on Sunday.

While the eyes of the entire world have been glued to events on the pitch, FIFA’s General Coordinators have been working away in the background, ensuring games have unfolded without a hitch. Present in all ten stadiums, they have used their organisational skills to ensure that the football takes pride of place.

The tough task of overseeing the organisation of Sunday’s Final at Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg will fall to FIFA General Coordinator Mustapha Fahmy. The experienced Egyptian took some time out of his busy schedule to chat with FIFA.com, sharing his thoughts on the culmination of the tournament, which will see a new name engraved on the famous Trophy.

An intricate exercise
The job of FIFA General Coordinator involves constant coordination and liaison with various key figures, such as stadium officials, representatives of the two teams involved. Even the flag bearers fall under his supervision. He is also responsible for the FIFA delegation, from an administrative and organisational point of view.

Fahmy, who is also General Secretary of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), explained his role in more detail: "Put simply, the general coordinator is responsible for the organisation of the match. His duties consist of taking care of every aspect of the encounter, such as the state of the pitch, the dressing rooms, the administrative side of things etc. On matchdays, we need to be at the venue seven hours before kick-off. We have to check that all is well in the stadium, as well as supervise flag bearer training, which in itself takes an hour and a half. Some 90 minutes prior to the start of the match, the two teams normally arrive at the stadium – that’s when we get our hands on the respective teamsheets. Subsequently, we go over the identity of the players and their strip colours and numbers with the refereeing team. Our next task is to organise the pre-match warm-ups. Then we make sure that the game begins at the correct time and that it is played in the best possible conditions
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