World Cup 2010 host cities, including Durban, may be unable to fulfil some of their core promises to Fifa if a number of concerns with the World Cup Special Measures Bill, which has passed through the cabinet, are not addressed soon.
The Bill was made available at a public hearing at the Durban Exhibition Centre on Wednesday by the provincial portfolio committee for sports and recreation.
An eThekwini Municipality team, which included City Manager Mike Sutcliffe and Legal Services head Nokhana Moerane, attended the hearings and both raised concerns over the legal competencies, the fast-tracking of stadium construction and the closing of private business during the world cup.
If these issues were not addressed timeously, they would be likely to impact negatively on the city's ability to host a successful world cup.
Durban and the other host cities - Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Polokwane, Nelspruit, Klerksdorp, Rustenburg, Bloemfontein, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Kimberley - signed Fifa's Host Cities Agreement in February. They were also required to sign stadium-use agreements.
When the agreement was announced, only certain Fifa requirements were published in the media. At Wednesday's hearing, however, it emerged that city managers had signed the agreements knowing that there were certain promises they could not uphold without special legislation.
Moerane said they had been put in a "take it or leave it" situation.
City managers had signed the agreement provided that three amendments were made to the preamble. These were that the government agreed to support the host cities in executing their world cup obligations, that it signed an agreement for special legislation to be passed to enable the cities to execute the duties under the agreement, and the indemnification of host cities.
However, Sutcliffe said these issues had not been included and that the South African Local Government Association had not been consulted in drafting the Bill.
Under the agreement Durban had committed itself to executing functions which fell outside its local government competencies. These included confiscating material which infringed on Fifa's marketing rights, closing private businesses within a certain perimeter of the stadium on match days, regulating the airport and implementing policing.
Sutcliffe said policing was an obvious area of concern because it was a national competency.
The city was also concerned that it did not have the power to close businesses in the vicinity of the world cup precinct.
In addition, the airport is a private entity operated by the Airports Company of South Africa and over which the city has no control.
The city was also put at risk by having to indemnify Fifa against any claims resulting from the world cup being staged in the city.
The city is also to required to ensure that no private advertising takes place within certain areas, that certain pubs and restaurants stay open on a 24-hour basis and that no construction takes place in the vicinity of the competition.
Moerana believes that some of these conditions would simply be impossible to fulfil.
Sutcliffe said he had been told that the concerns could be addressed in an amendment to the Bill.
The chairperson of the provincial portfolio committee for sports and recreation, Paulos Ngcobo, said he had heard some of the concerns raised by Sutcliffe for the first time on Wednesday and added that all were important.
"These issues are important because the games will take place in Durban and whatever concerns they have we have to take on board because they are going to affect us."
He was also perturbed by Sutcliffe's concerns over the slow pace of the Environmental Impact Assessment process.
"If we follow the process as it should be implemented, then some stadiums will only be finished after the world cup.
"We are not here to kill our own companies, but we need to find a balance between the needs of Fifa and our needs, because we cannot have business closing," he said.