Soccer's world governing body FIFA will earn about 25 billion rand on the television media rights to broadcast the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa. That was a massive increase from the 22 billion rand FIFA received for the past two World Cups combined, FIFA TV director Niclas Ericson told a media briefing in Johannesburg on Monday.

FIFA was also making the 2010 spectacle available to millions of fans via their cell phones worldwide.

FIFA would spend an estimated 1.5 billion rand on TV production for the world showpiece. However, Ericson said he was expecting a viewership of just over 26 billion worldwide for the duration of the month-long tournament, the same number that watched the 2006 event in Germany.

Ericson said, "It is difficult to estimate the viewership expected. Had a country like China with 1.3 billion people qualified for the World Cup, then viewership would have soared.

"But although we are not quite at saturation point, it is difficult to estimate how many viewers we will have even in Africa. It depends on how well African teams fare in the World Cup, but we expect it will be roughly the same as in 2006."

Ericson said FIFA would give Africa a better deal for the 2010 finals.

"We have entered an agreement with the African Union of Broadcasters to place the TV rights in 41 sub-Saharan countries before the end of 2009. The dream would be for an African team top reach the final, which would boost TV viewership.

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