World Cup Local Organising Committee (LOC) CEO Danny Jordaan, Fifa's director of marketing Jerome Valcke and the 11 cities in the bid book met in Johannesburg on Friday afternoon to look at the criteria for the host cities.

"The main thing discussed today was to see who will be the 10 host cities," said Valcke.

With a Fifa inspection team having already visited the various cities bidding to host world cup games two months ago, Valcke conceded that Fifa "already know who will likely host the games but we are just awaiting the recommended cities from the LOC".

The decision, though, on who the final 10 host cities will be is a decision that will be made together by Fifa and the LOC. "We want this to be a world class event," Valcke said.

Jordaan revealed that it was still early days to say who the host cities will be as the host city and stadium agreements were only signed on Friday.

"At this stage we have only signed the host city and stadium agreements after which we will conduct studies of our own to evaluate the cities. We hope to have our recommendations of the 10 host cities to Fifa by next year March," Jordaan said.

The cities in the running to host games at the 2010 World Cup are Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Durban, Polokwane, Nelspruit, Klerksdorp, Rustenburg, Bloemfontein, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Kimberley.

Source: News24