Johannesburg Mayor Amos Masondo has expressed satisfaction with the progress being made at the city's soccer stadia ahead of next year's FIFA World Cup.

Soccer City and Ellis Park Stadium are the two soccer stadia in Johannesburg reserved for the World Cup while the revamped Soweto's Orlando Stadium, Dobsonville Athletics Stadium and Rand Stadium are among those that will pay a crucial role to accommodate players for training purposes.

Construction at Soccer City is more than 70 percent complete, with work on the 97 000-seater venue expected to be finished by the end of the year.

"It was important that we create quality stadiums that can stand the test of time," Masondo told BuaNews.

He added: "We hope that when the games are over we will be able to look back and say this is something that will work well for us in the future."

Masondo said the legacy projects were crucial for South Africa because it is these projects that will benefit ordinary people long before after the final match had been played.

"The interventions that are being made in sport should be able to uplift our people in many ways," said Mr Masondo.

"As I said earlier, this is and an investment that's worth our while because this will add to the momentum of the tournament," explained Masondo.

Meanwhile, Ellis Park Stadium Chief Executive Officer Paul Appalsamy said all the upgrade work on the venue had been done within budget.

Ellis Park will host one of the semi-finals of the World Cup and the venue's capacity had been upgraded by another 10 000 to create a total of 70 000 seats.

"The project had been very intense; we had to look on the whole issue of infrastructure upgrade in order to meet the legacy requirements.

"We had to address the fact that you needed a space around the stadium because Ellis Park is a very dense area, so there was a lot of work involved," commented Appalsamy.