CAPE TOWN, April 30: South Africa launched its bid to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup in Cape Town on Tuesday, with organisers vowing to do all they could to make sure an African country would host the coveted tournament for the first time.

Danny Jordaan, chief executive of the country’s bidding committee, told a banquet in Cape Town that the bid was “an African bid and South Africa was merely the stage.”

“The bid will embrace all of Africa,” he said, adding that when the committee went to Paris for FIFA’s (the world soccer governing body) 100th anniversary next year, it would be hoping to hear the outcome as one of the favourites.

South Africa lost the bid to host the 2006 World Cup to Germany amid much controversy in July 2000.—AFP