Whassup whassappening! That’s a greeting one of my good friends belts out every time I see him. In the case of the Confed Cup, there’s plenty up and plenty happening. It’s just around the corner and we can see the acceleration of preparations. Billboards are going up, TV ads are being flighted (and it’s a pretty cool ad too if you’ve seen it) and….TICKETS ARE ON SALE! You can apply for some at www.fifa.com or at www.fnb.co.za. Tickets range in price from R1400 for the final, down to just R70; it is heartening to see that special tickets are also on offer to cater for the disabled.

With the fear and loathing – and I do hate to abuse that term, given to us by the late and formerly stark raving crazy Hunter S. Thompson – surrounding the economic crisis, some are wondering about the influx of foreign tourists for the football. Will it be massive? Will it be not-massive?

Thanks to irreverent site Hayibo, then, for its statistics and its solution to the problem. Plenty of foreigners, we have, from failed states and unpleasant neighboring regimes, most of whom no doubt enjoy a game of soccer. Read all about it. And have a laugh.

About the billboards. Cherryflava has taken FNB to task for its branding of the Bloemfontein cooling towers. Dude reckons its shameless self promotion – however, FNB is still busy with branding these bad boys with something other than the usual corporate schpiel.  You’ll notice in the pic that there are a couple other towers without branding yet. Apparently we can expect something cool there…soon.

Heard that Joel Santana has designs on the Confederations Cup. Apparently he says our team is in it to win it (I think I plagiarised that from somewhere. Sorry.) Or, actually, Joel would have said something like África do Sul ' a equipa de futebol de s tentará ganhar o Copo das Confederações. His English is, I hear, not so hot. My Portuguese isn’t, either, we have Babelfish to thank for the translation.

Lekker logo they have for that tournament, too.