Geneva - The UN's special adviser on sport for Development and Peace said Tuesday he hoped the 2010 World Cup in South Africa would be one big party like the one seen in the Swiss city of Berne during Euro 2008. Willi Lemke, a former senator for sport and education in his German home town of Bremen and one time football manager to Werder Bremen, congratulated the Swiss saying there had been "no violence and a wonderful atmosphere."
Berne had been the setting for Italy's crushing 3-0 defeat to the Netherlands on Monday.
"I sat for eight hours in Berne. This was not a football match but a football party, a big, big party with thousands of people," he told reporters in Geneva.
"Sport brings people together and I really hope this will happen in Africa," said Lemke who was due to travel to South Africa next week to the UN International Youth Crime Prevention and City Summit in Durban.
The recent violence against foreigners in South Africa was even more reason why the World Cup "must be a success," he added.
"This must strengthen the people of Africa. There are problems and we have to discuss them," he said.
