Soccer fans traveling to South Africa for this year's World Cup
tournament may be at risk because police there are too fat to fight
crime, it emerged Monday.
A new report found over half (54 percent) of police officers
in one of the country's major cities, Port Elizabeth, were
classified as medically obese and half of the district's
firefighters were also too heavy.
The findings have stoked fears that cops in South Africa are
failing to restrain criminals in a country with one of the highest
crime rates in the world. On average, 50 people are murdered each
day.
Elizabeth Trent, a councilor from Port Elizabeth, blew the
lid on the official figures and said she was concerned the nation's
police were not up to the challenge of keeping June's soccer World
Cup under control.
"With the World Cup looming we need our police to be on top
of their game but the fact so many are so fat raises questions
about their ability to perform," she was quoted as saying by the
Daily Telegraph in London.
The report said "fat cop" syndrome, as it has become known,
is not a problem confined to Port Elizabeth. It cited comments made
by South Africa's police commissioner Bheki Cele last year, who
said there were "too many overweight, unfit cops in the force."
It comes less than a week after FIFA president Sepp Blatter
insisted the country was ready to host Africa's first World Cup.
FIFA tried to reassure fans about visiting South Africa as it
marked 100 days until the tournament began, saying more than 2.4
billion rand ($325 million) was spent on security for the
tournament.
Around 41,000 additional police will be on duty during the
tournament, using hi-tech security equipment to help keep crime at
bay.
