To watch a video of our journey to the 2010 South Africa World Cup click here.

As the World Cup kicks-off this week, football fans globally will be able to fly to a South Africa airport, take the rail system in to the city, watch the opening match, and then travel by bus rapid transit back to their hotel for the evening – all courtesy of Davis Langdon & Seah International.

It is clear from an extensive back catalogue that Davis Langdon can provide world-class stadia globally, but it takes more than a stadium to stage a successful footballing event. The infrastructure, transport and hospitality all play a large part in an event’s success. It is also about providing a lasting legacy; something that the Global Sports Group feels it has accomplished.

Davis Langdon has provided cost management and/or specification consulting services for seven of the ten stadium projects playing host to the World Cup games. In addition, the firm has also helped deliver training venues and some of the infrastructure and hospitality supporting the event including hotels and a variety of different transport projects, which include the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) services and the Gautrain rapid rail link. The new rail line, which started running this week, spans from Johannesburg to Pretoria with an extension to OR Tambo International Airport, another Davis Langdon project.

The firm has also secured a framework agreement with Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) and has worked on a on a number of airport projects in the Host cities across the country, including Johannesburg and Durban.

The initial targeting and position work was led by the DLSI Sports Group (forerunner of the Global Sports Group) before handing over to colleagues in their Africa offices. These offices carried out most of the work, collaborating closely with people from the EME Airports, Rail and Sports & Venues sub sector specialist teams, as well as Davis Langdon Schumann Smith to see these projects through to completion.

Davis Langdon has been fortunate enough to work on the largest capacity stadium, Soccer City, which has a capacity of 98,700 and holds the opening game and the final. The other six Davis Langdon venues are scattered around the country and will hold group games, both semi-final matches and the third/fourth place final.

Jon Coxeter-Smith, Head of the Global Sports Group comments: “Our involvement in helping deliver the venues and supporting infrastructure and hospitality requirements for World Cup 2010 provides us with a very credible position when speaking to bidding, host nations and cities of major sporting events all around the world.”

The seven stadiums Davis Langdon was involved in are: