A high-powered delegation from the world football body FIFA was due to begin a five-day inspection tour of 2010 World Cup stadium sites in South Africa on Monday amid reports of deep divisions within the local 2010 organizing body.
The FIFA delegation will visit stadiums in Johannesburg and Pretoria (Gauteng province), Rustenburg (North-West province), Mangaung (Free State province), Polokwane (Limpopo province) and Nelspruit (Mpumalanga province).
South Africa is building or refurbishing nine stadiums for the World Cup, being staged in Africa for the first time in 2010.
Nelspruit's Mombela stadium is emerging from its second strike in three months after workers last week downed tools again over pay, demanding to be paid at higher civil engineering rather than building industry rates.
The strike action involving around 450 workers had been suspended Monday ahead of the FIFA visit although the pay issue had yet to be resolved, a local spokesman for the National Union of Mineworkers, George Ledwaba, said.
The matter had been referred to the independent Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, Ledwaba said.
Nelspruit was one of three host cities where workers walked off the job last year over pay raising concerns over South Africa's readiness for the tournament. The 2010 local organizing committee (LOC) has repeatedly assured that all the stadiums are on schedule.
FIFA officials will be making their own assessment - as well as investigating reports of deep discord within the LOC fuelled by reports that marketing and communications director Tim Modise was on the brink of leaving.
Relations between Modise and LOC chief executive Danny Jordaan were described as "an accident waiting to happen," the Sunday Times reported quoting unnamed officials who said FIFA head Sepp Blatter had been forced to intervene between the two men.
The LOC was due to address the rumours at a press conference later Monday.
Sapa-dpa