Atlanta Soccer News: Art, Music and Culture: Americans Bought the Most World Cup Tickets - Atlanta Celebrates

The Or Tambo International Airport has been under siege from thousands of Americans taking their vacation in South Africa. These Americans came from different cities such as New York, Atlanta and Washington. Others who were not so fortunate to get direct flights arrived groggy as their connecting flights took up to 2 days to complete.

Americans go to this continent to explore Kruger National Park or hike the Table Mountain. Some are interested in Nelson Mandela’s fight and choose to trace his path. This time around, the exodus of Americans is for a different reason though. Yes, it’s the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
There are only 3 days left to go before the soccer spectacle the whole world awaits is to start.

Statistics show that during this World Cup, the largest number of ticket holders did not come from countries that hold soccer as their primary sport. The country that has the most ticket holders is amazingly the United States, the country that focuses on Baseball, American Football and Basketball of course.

FIFA stated that more than 130,000 of the nearly 3 million tickets went to Americans. Apart from the host country, the United States garnered the most ticket purchases.

Not all of them are going to support the American World Cup team though. Inhabitants of the United States are fans of various teams such as Mexico, Honduras and other Latin American nations.

The main point of this all is soccer’s growing influence in a country that is so engrossed in other games. This comes as a big shock.

In Atlanta there are two festivals this weekend celebrating the World Cup. The Cabbagetown Soccerfest is a child friendly soccer oriented community festival organised around viewing parties for the upcomming matches on June 12. The other festival is the Atlanta International Soccerfest, organized and supported by the local international trade missions and diplomatic community the centres around viewing parties and an international soccer tournament. Both of these festivals are supported by Georgia Soccer and the Atlanta Win the Bid organizations.

For more information on the festivals and organizations please go to: www.atlantasoccerfest.org;www.atlsoccerfest.com;www.gasoccer.org;www.gousabid.com/city/local/atlanta-GA