Organizers are looking for 15,000 volunteers to help with the first football World Cup to be held in Africa.
Danny Jordaan, head of South Africa's World Cup organizing committee, put out the call Monday for what he called the "life blood" of the 2010 tournament.
Among tasks volunteers are needed to perform are taking tickets, registering members of the media and transporting teams between hotels and stadiums.
Most of the volunteers will be South African. Ten percent of the slots are for other Africans, and 10 percent for non-Africans.
World Cup organizers are expecting an enthusiastic volunteer turnout _ for the recent Confederations Cup in South Africa, seen as a World Cup warmup, 8,000 people applied for 4,380 slots.
Volunteer coordinator Onke Mjo said that she expected up to 100,000 applications for the 15,000 World Cup spots.
Nannikie Mogwashwa, a business management student who volunteered for the Confederations Cup, said that the event helped her to "learn what it means to be South African."
She said she would be quick to apply to volunteer at the 2010 World Cup, and looked forward to joining volunteers from around the world.
"We want to impart to the world what it means to live in a place as beautiful and diverse as ours," she said.
Organizers said they'd especially be looking for volunteers able to speak English, the standard language for World Cup events, as well as languages such as German and Japanese, expected to be the home languages of many fans.
Volunteering doesn't mean you'll get to see a match _ entry to matches is not a perk of the job.
Work shifts can be arranged to leave some time for attending matches at the volunteer's expense, but volunteers need to commit to working at least 15 days over the course of the monthlong tournament.
Volunteers can apply starting Monday until Aug. 31 on the FIFA Web site. They must be at least 18 as of March and able to speak, read and write English.
Hopefuls will be notified by January if they've made it to the next round, during which telephone interviews will be conducted for out-of-country applicants.
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http://www.FIFA.com/volunteers2010
