The Mbombela Stadium is a football and Rugby union all-seater stadium in Mbombela in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa was built for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, It was one of 10 venues for the tournament and one of 5 newly constructed stadiums. It is the home ground for the Pumas. It is an all-seater stadium, with 43,500-seats, almost all under roof. It is located 6 kilometres west of Mbombela, the capital of the Mpumalanga province and is the largest venue in the province. The R1,050-million facility was ready for use well ahead of the June 2010 World Cup kickoff and was funded entirely through central government taxpayer funding, requiring no financing by the city. Construction Construction commenced in February 2007 and was completed in November 2009. The construction contract was awarded to a South African–French consortium of Basil Read Construction and Bouygues. The structure is founded on 1,500 piles on a 10m structural grid. Each roof support (in the shape of a giraffe) sits on 18 piles on the 30m major structural bay. The 10m span seating beams are prestressed and most of the 3,170 units were pre-cast on site. The project was subjected to numerous wildcat strikes. With the 5th and final strike, all main contract labourers were dismissed. All subsequent work was performed by subcontractors. During a freak storm in January 2009, a tower crane blew over and cut through the partially completed roof. The site was unoccupied at the time and there were no injuries. The construction required a total of 5.5 million man-hours to complete. The site accident history was exceptionally safe with the worst injury being a broken ankle. A record was set of 2.4 million consecutive injury-free hours. Design The stadium design reflects its inter-relation with the nearby Kruger National Park. The signature feature of the stadium are the 18 roof supports that resemble giraffes. The seats are patterned with zebra stripes. Visitors to the venue can easily add on a side-trip to the game reserve. Seating The bowl design aimed to put every seat as close as practical to the field action and maintain excellent sightlines over the heads of spectators. This venue is the most compact arena of all 2010 venues. Most seats 95% are covered by the cantilever roof. The seating capacity is 43,500. In FIFA WC configuration it seated 40,929 with regular seats lost to the media tribune.