Football: AFP deploys 100-strong World Cup team

Coverage will be underpinned by editorial desks in Paris through the 64-match tournament with reporters covering all the teams from training sessions through to match days from their respective bases. As well as comprehensive text, video and multimedia coverage a 48-strong team of photographers will criss-cross the country with a dozen editors transmitting their production from Johannesburg.

AFP coverage will be in English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Portuguese while the agency's sister organisation SID will transmit a comprehensive service in German. Backing up the action from the event itself will be the Johannesburg bureau which has in recent months been sending out a steady stream of World Cup-related news.

For the first time at a World Cup AFP is also providing video coverage - away from the matches themselves - with three teams of video reporters in action across South Africa following both the teams but also the local populations in host cities to show how they are experiencing the tournament. AFP expect to provide 170 videos across the event and an eight-strong technical team will link up the coverage, which will included flash graphics., as well as comprehensive biographies and statistics. AFP's multimedia team in London is furthermore organising live online reports of all 64 games.