Johannesburg, June 28 (IANS) You can find the most maverick of football fans in the World Cup, but Thulani Ngcobo stands out. The 29-year-old Ngcobo, a government employee, entered his name in the Guinness Book for setting the world record of watching most number of matches by an individual in any World Cup.
Ngcobo has watched more than 1800 minutes of live football in eight host cities and nine stadiums. He received the certificate from Guinness Record adjudicator minutes after he finished watching his 21st game between Chile and Spain in Pretoria Saturday.
He needed to watch 21 matches to break the past record of 20 matches, but now he wants to carry on and stop only after the 38th match, which will be the final at the Soccer City in J’oburg July 11.
Out of the 38 matches, 31 would be full matches and seven half, because he had to leave midway to travel to other city.
After the end of the World Cup, he would have traveled 17,000 kms by road and air and watched over 34,000 minutes of live football.
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Police comes down hard on tickets touts
Johannesburg: South African police have issued a stern warning to all those involved in black marketing of FIFA World Cup tickets.
Police officials said that the blackmarketeers will not only be arrested but will also be caught. Gauteng police spokesman Brigadeer Govindswamy Mariemuthoo said that a special World Cup court is handling all these cases.
On Sunday, police officials arrested a local, a German and an American for selling tickets after a tip-off. Police seized 70 tickets from the trio.
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World Cup court sentences five years for a cell phone theft
Johannesburg: The special World Cup court has come under harsh criticism for sentencing offenders for a petty crime like cell phone theft.
In the last two weeks over 50 cases of cell phone thefts were solved by the special court but locals feel that such kind of sentencing cannot be sustained after the World Cup and it would only lead to overcrowding of jails in South Africa.
Nearly 56 World Cup courts have been set up in the country.
