I think it could be a mistake yeah, apparently they are thinking of having artificial pitches as the conditions in Africa aren't too good for creating a top level playing surface naturally (the African Cup of Nations had grass imported but it pretty much died and the ball was hardly moving across it).
Hopefully it won't be too hot down there, we've seen what can happen if you keep having to re-lay pitches, things might not turn out right. Artificial pitches absolutely SUCK, I've got tons of scars from turf burn and all that lovely stuff, plus the pitch would basically melt during the heat. But you're right, maybe it is a mistake to host it there so soon.
On the plus side... i'm glad to see they are giving away tickets for free/on the cheap to locals. In the cricket World Cup in the West Indies the stadiums were empty as the authorities had the ticket prices so high that the locals simply couldn't afford it. I know alot of people from around the world will be going to Africa but still, you need the South African people to get behind it and stamp their mark on the whole thing.
Well, I personally think that too much is too much. Almost 1/4th of available tickets will be taken by South Africans, which can be a good thing, but that's crossing the line way too far. Let the South Africans into their matches. Give them 75% of available seats for whenever South Africa plays. Give them decent seats during all the other games, maybe 5,000 for the smaller stadiums and up to 10,000 for the biggest stadiums. This might sound strange to some, but if I wanted to watch two teams play, I wouldn't want some random people in the stands that don't have any interest in either team! If say, Holland and Argentina are playing, I don't want the entire stadium to be filled with South Africans, I want it to be filled with Dutch and Argie people. Not a bunch of South African people who could potentially damage the atmosphere. The same thing has happened a few times when I go out to watch a match, and it's annoying. Last summer, when I went to see the USA play Argentina, about 5,000 or so Mexicans showed up, with the Mexican flag, the face painted; the whole 9 yards. They were even doing the Mexico Mexico chant, which kind of bothered me. During the game, they were waving the Mexican flag, and acting like their national team was playing. It was kind of annoying, they basically took over the atmosphere and did things their way, and both the American crowd and the Argie crowd were pretty pissed, it was the whole "you have no interest in either team, you dislike both teams, the match is in the middle of New Jersey, so what the f**k are you doing here besides ruining a good atmosphere?" kind of thing, imagine if a bunch of Independente fans showed up to a River-Boca match, or a bunch of Scouse showed up to a United-Chelsea match or so on and so fourth. I don't care if the tickets go 45-45-10 in terms of who gets what. I don't mind to see some South Africans get into any match. I just don't want them dominating the crowd percentage/makeup. And sadly, that's not how it'll happen. The way I see it, Sepp wants to subsidize those tickets and make everything more expensive for everyone else, just so he can say that South Africa worked. He's basically giving away some 200,000 tickets for nothing at all. The whole "hey look what I can do, maybe I'm not the dumbass that people say I am" attitude is kind of scary, as there are a ton of things that could go wrong, and a few of them probably will. And Sepp will think everything is going perfectly well. Ugh.
What the hell, I'll be there regardless, what should I complain about?!