Fifa President Sepp Blatter confirmed South Africa's winning bid

South Africa's Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has previously gone on record as saying tickets were set to be very expensive, and urged people to start saving now for 2010.

But Christelle Grohmann, of consultant firm Grant Thornton, which drew up the impact report for SA's bid committee, told BBC World Service's Africa Live programme that these comments had to be looked at "in context."

"We had a look at the ticket prices for France - an average ticket price of 600 Rand," she explained.

"Our average ticket price is 826 Rand in 2010 terms - so you have to take it forward six years from now. So it's not that much more expensive from France - especially as those prices were a few years ago, in 1998."

Greater impact

One of the fears raised before South Africa's confirmation as 2010 hosts was that games not involving South Africa could end up being played in front of empty stands.

But Ms Grohmann said that the policy to be put in place is to make the earlier matches cheaper and place a premium on the semi-finals and final.

She said she hope this would "bring the South Africans in on the earlier matches."

South Africa is the engine room of Africa and the country best suited to host this type of event Lawrence Masterson, UK Is South Africa the right decision?

"Certainly, those tickets are a lot cheaper than they were in Korea for those matches," she added.

Grant Thornton's evaluation has concluded that hosting the 2010 World Cup will provide the country with a massive economic boost, coupled with the likely spin-offs of an improved image abroad.

She said that while the economy had not seen a great benefit from hosting either the rugby or cricket World Cups, there would be a vast difference with the football edition - the second-biggest sporting event in the world, after the Olympics.

"It's a lot bigger, certainly compared to cricket and rugby - far bigger, and also it will affect more cities," she stressed.

"So definitely the impact will be greater than we've seen from the other events."

This money is expected to come from ticket sales - 4.6bn Rand out of an estimated total of 12.6bn in direct expenditure - and spending from tourism, spectators and team members.

And she added that one specific way that the country would benefit was that contracts would be handed out to smaller domestic companies, rather than large multi-nationals.

These would include contracts for transport, and beverage supplies.

Further, Ms Grohmann said the benefit of hosting the tournament would be felt outside South Africa.

"For southern African countries there will be some tourism benefit," she said.

"If somebody's going to come all the way out to South Africa as a spectator, they may well take in the other icons - Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and the Okavango Delta [in Botswana].