9 July 2010, 09:44

A German soccer tourist is due in court on Friday for allegedly assaulting a cabin crew member when his plane did not make it to the World Cup semifinal, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said.

“He is alleged to have assaulted a cabin crew member on landing in Port Elizabeth,” NPA spokesman Mthunzi Mhaga told Sapa.

The man, Jorg Mardos, was on an SA Airways flight bound for Durban when the plane had to turn back from landing at King Shaka International Airport during the chaos on Wednesday.

The man was arrested on landing in Port Elizabeth and later granted bail.

The case was remanded until Friday so the man could arrange legal representation.

“He is to be charged with assault.

“The state also has to secure the attendance of the complainant and the witness,” said Mhaga. – Sapa

http://www.thestar.co.za/?fSectionId=3268&fArticleId=iol1278668075962S226

and

http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=3268&fArticleId=iol1278651080630S361

‘Fifa jet among airport hogs’

9 July 2010, 10:55
By Nompumelelo Magwaza and Tony Carnie

A jet carrying senior Fifa officials to the Durban semi-final is believed to be among the King Shaka International Airport planes that refused to make space for other aircraft on Wednesday night.

The Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) has refused to name and shame the aircraft owners and pilots who allegedly refused to honour a prior agreement to move to the old Durban International Airport after dropping off passengers at King Shaka.

However, Acsa’s Bongiwe Pityi confirmed on Thursday that the company planned to levy significant fines on the owners of at least seven aircraft.

She said airport managers had held meetings with some of the pilots, but they refused to relocate.

“We had an option to tow these aircraft, but we could not because we might have ended up damaging them,” she said.

Aviation sources told our sister paper The Mercury that a jet carrying Fifa officials was among the aircraft whose pilots refused to move.

“The crew of the Fifa plane was asked to move out of King Shaka, but the crew quite correctly refused to leave without the prior agreement of the Fifa delegation.”

•This article was originally published on page 1 of The Star on July 09, 2010

Seems like this is one of the thing they always do. There was an article on the CityPress at http://www.citypress.co.za/SouthAfrica/News/Fifas-great-SA-ripoff-20100606

The article vanished since it was place (wonder why)
I capture an excerpt from it before they took it off and it said:

” A senior government official said: “Fifa are a bunch of thugs. Not even the UN expects you to sign away your tax base. These mafiosos do.”

The South African Revenue Service (Sars) has been forced to accede to an extraordinary “tax ­bubble” around “Fifa-designated sites” which ­exempts Fifa, its subsidiaries and foreign football ­associations from paying income tax, customs ­duties and value-added tax (VAT).

As a consequence South Africa, which has already spent R63 billion, will stand to lose tens or possibly hundreds of millions of rand in potential revenue.

According to a document compiled by SARS, by the end of April R613 million worth of goods had been imported into South Africa for the tournament. Rebates of R118 million were paid out on those imports in line with special tax measures for the World Cup.

The National Treasury says it is unable to provide estimates of the amount of foreign currency brought into and taken out of SA, but said one of the guarantees was “unrestricted import and export”.

Some of Fifa’s commercial affiliates, licensees, host broadcasters, broadcast rights agencies, ­merchandise partners and service providers will not pay taxes on the profits they make during the World Cup. But VAT will be paid on ticket sales and foreign-based soccer players will be taxed on income they receive for playing in the tournament.”

If not, then all these laws are technically not applicable (null & void?) and things such as exclusion zones around stadiums, bypassing existing exchange controls for FIFA (allowing clear paths for money laundering for the next month?), exemptions to income tax and other taxes, blankett indemnity to FIFA, possibly denying South Africans access to health care since facilities must be available for the World Cup, etc. are actually illegal? If this is the case, how could businesses & individuals adversely impacted by these laws seek redress/restitution for loss of business/trade from govt and/or FIFA?