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World Cup 2006 News

2004 | 2005 | 2006

Prost! German Beer To Be Sold At Stadiums

22 Dec 2004

German beer will be available at World Cup stadiums after all. US beer giant Anheuser-Busch, which paid US$40m to FIFA for the exclusive rights for beer sales in stadiums, has reached an agreement with the German firm Bitburger, which will now be allowed to sell its beer alongside Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser brand.

No Tickets For Politicians!?

17 Dec 2004

The 2006 World Cup organizing committee have denied that any tickets have been set aside for German politicians, contrary to reports in several local newspapers. "No tickets have been promised, either complimentary or normal ones," said media director Wolfgang Niersbach. The German tabloid Bild quoted a letter from the parliament's sports committee saying that World Cup organizers would allow each of Germany's 603 lawmakers the chance to purchase a ticket for two first round games.

FIFA OKs Pre-Tournament Break

15 Dec 2004

Players will be given a longer break before the 2006 World Cup as FIFA has altered its 2006 competition calendar. FIFA stipulated that almost all competitive fixtures were to end by May 14, which will be followed by an eight-day rest period. May 23 to June 8 has been set aside for World Cup preparation, with the World Cup finals due to start June 9. The UEFA Cup final will take place May 17 and the Champions League final May 24. "The view of the technical experts in world football is very clear," FIFA said in a statement. "Players, especially internationals, are taking part in too many matches." FIFA is responding to the dip in performance of the big stars in the 2002 World Cup and 2004 European Championships, "as a likely consequence of the increase in matches."

German Schools To The World

13 Dec 2004

A new project in German schools called "World Cup Schools" will pair 205 high schools in Germany with their FIFA partner country for the next two years. During the World Cup in 2006, 32 schools will participate in a street soccer tournament in Potsdam. Both boys and girls will play modeled on a method made popular by "Street Soccer for Tolerance," which has the players determine the rules amonst themselves. Besides doing away with referees, it also means that goals scored by boys only count when a girl also scores a goal.

Hamburg SV Ticket System

12 Dec 2004

Bundesliga club Hamburg SV has contracted Siemens to install a ticket access control system for the AOL Arena. The new system will facilitate entry for genuine ticket holders and make it more difficult for people to enter with forged tickets.

Deutsche Bahn New Sponsor

10 Dec 2004

German rail company Deutsche Bahn will be the sixth and final sponsor of the 2006 tournament. Deutsche Bahn will pay €60 million for the rights. Postbank, Energy company EnBW, betting company Oddset, the home improvement store OBI and insurance group Hamburg-Mannheimer make up the other five sponsors.

Public Screenings Under Threat

9 Dec 2004

Stringent FIFA sponsorship rules and the large costs involved may prevent public screenings of World Cup matches in the 12 venue cities. Public broadcasts in other German cities may also not take place due to broadcast fees demanded by media rights holders Infront. FIFA is prepared to pay part of the costs involved in these big screen broadcasts but the amounts offered do not cover the whole expenses of the events, which fall on local city councils. Local sponsors are loath to step in as they are prohibited from advertising - as the official 15 FIFA sponsors hold exclusive advertising rights for the tournament.

Klinsmann Hires Shrink; Team To Move To Berlin

3 Dec 2004

New German coach Jurgen Klinsmann has appointed a team psychologist, Hans-Dieter Hermann, as part of his plan to revitalize the national team's fortunes. Klinsmann has also introduced new red shirts for the team as their change strip and moved the team's training camp for the World Cup from Leverkusen to Grunewald, a suburb of Berlin. The team will train at the stadium of Hertha Berlin's amateur side, with a capacity of 4,500. "We believe we should present ourselves in the capital. We want to be in the midst of the World Cup fever," said team manager Oliver Bierhoff.

World Cup 2006 Mascots

15 Nov 2004

(c) dpa - Sportreport

The World Cup 2006 official mascots have been unveiled in a ceremony in Leipzig, November 13, and they are Goleo VI, a human-size lion puppet designed by the US-based Jim Henson Company, the producers of the successful puppet show 'The Muppets", and Pille a talking soccer ball that possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of the game. Goleo VI and Pille are scheduled to have their own TV series and will appear as World Cup ambassadors in the run-up to the finals. The mascots are a departure from the 3 computer-generated and easily-forgettable mascots used at World Cup 2002 and is FIFA's first-ever "living" character that can "talk, dance, play music and make people laugh". Goleo VI has enjoyed rather mixed reviews in the German press with some commentators noting that he isn't wearing any shorts and the Roman numeral VI does not denote the 6 in 2006 but the fact that he was the sixth candidate for the job. The last lion to hold down the job of World Cup mascot was England's "World Cup Willie' and the hosts went on to win the Cup against - Germany.

Confederations Cup 2005 Schedule

3 Nov 2004

The draw for the 2005 Confederations Cup was made in Frankfurt 1 November. In Group A hosts Germany were drawn with Oceania champions Australia, Copa America runners-up Argentina and African champions Tunisia. In Group B Copa America and world champions Brazil were drawn with Asian champions Japan, European champions Greece and CONCACAF champions Mexico. The 15-day tournament takes place in June next year with the final on June 29 at Frankfurt's Waldstadion. The other venues are Hannover, Cologne, Leipzig and Nuremberg.

World Cup Shops Open In Germany

1 Nov 2004

By November 5 2004 official World Cup stores will open in the 12 venue cities across Germany. The official shops will be based in Karstadt department stores. Official World Cup stores debuted in France for the 1998 World Cup and were a big success at World Cup 2002 in Korea/Japan. Germany hopes to have around 300 shops selling World Cup merchandize by the time the finals kick off.

Germany To Play Opening Game

28 Oct 2004

Hosts Germany will play the opening game at World Cup 2006 after all. Germany will kick off the tournament June 9, 2006 in Munich following a FIFA ruling. German coach Jurgen Klinsmann had wanted reigning champions Brazil to start proceedings, provided they qualified, to give his team more time to prepare and to ease the pressure on the home team. The match will be held at the 66,000 seat Allianz Arena, which will be called the 'FIFA World Cup Stadium' during the tournament as the insurance group Allianz is not among the official sponsors of the event.
FIFA also announced that the final draw for the tournament will be held December 9, 2005 in Leipzig. Kick-off times for the group matches were set at 3pm, 6pm and 9pm local time with second-round games set for 5pm and 9pm kick-off times. The final will begin 8pm local time.

World Cup Tickets

28 Oct 2004

A majority of tickets offered in the cheapest (35 Euro) category will be sold almost entirely to German fans.
"We are aware that we won't have enough tickets and will be criticised for it. There will be disappointments," said organising committee chief Franz Beckenbauer.
The first batch of 25 percent of the 3.2 million available tickets will go on sale in February 2005, but organisers have yet yo decide how many tickets will be available online and how many at ticket offices or through the organising committee.
Another 450,000 tickets will go to the agency which handles the hospitality area at the World Cup, many of these tickets have become available through other channels at previous World Cups.
"They have paid (1.1 million Euro) for this right. We can moan as much as we like, but we have to bow to FIFA," said Beckenbauer.
Beckenbauer said he feared a massive black market for World Cup tickets in Germany although organisers promised they were in discussion with FIFA about releasing additional tickets for German fans.

World Cup Volunteers

World Cup organizers in Germany are seeking 15,000 volunteers to help host the World Cup in 2006.
Up to 1,000 volunteers will be working at each of the 12 World Cup venues to guide and help visitors to the event.
"We need drivers who know their cities like a navigation system, we are looking for fluent World Cup ambassadors who know their road atlas off by heart, we need media helpers who practically know what a journalist needs better than the journalist," organising committee president Franz Beckenbauer told the press.
Volunteers will assist the 32 teams, help VIP visitors, and work in FIFA accreditation and press centres.
Candidates must be at least 18, have a good knowledge of German and be able to speak English.
The recruitment of volunteers is being held over three phases: from October to December 2004, from June to September 2005 and from January to February 2006.
Volunteers are also being sought for the Confederations Cup being hosted in Germany from 15-29 June 2005.
Applications can be made via the internet at www.FIFAworldcup.com.
At World Cup 2002 Korea and Japan recruited 12,000 volunteers respectively to help in the smooth running of the tournament.

World Cup Poster

19 Oct 2004

World Cup 2006 Poster

The design for the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ Official Poster has been unveiled. The winning design by Berlin design agency We do Communication GmbH featues a football made up of stars glittering in a night sky. The winning design beat off four rivals in a telephone and text poll by 50,000 people in Germany.
"We liked both the idea and the execution. Stars taking the shape of a football is a new, strongly symbolic idea, and the poster struck an emotional chord with me. In my opinion, football is all about emotion and passion. The fans have made the right choice," said 2006 FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee President Franz Beckenbauer.
The final shortlist of five designs also included presentations by Makoto Saito, Japan, and German agencies Cyan (Berlin), Friedhelm Grabowski Kommunikations-Design (Frankfurt) and Schaffhausen Communication Group (Elmshorn).

See large image.

World Cup 2002 Poster

World Cup Prize Money

10 Oct 2004

The 32 teams who will participate in the World Cup 2006 finals will each receive 10.37 million Swiss Francs (US$8.25m) in prize money - an increase of 38% on the finals in Korea and Japan in 2002.
Fifa announced an increased bonus pool of 332 million Swiss Francs (US$264m), compared with the 240 million Swiss Francs (US$191m) offered in 2002, which amounts to 7.5 million Swiss Francs (US$5.9m) per team.

Give Us A Break

Fifa is planning to implement a three-and-a-half-week break for players ahead of the 2006 World Cup in an attempt to ease the strain on top player burn-out, which has lead to a number of players retiring early from international soccer.
Speaking at the end of two days of meetings in Zurich, Fifa president Sepp Blatter said Fifa, in agreement with coaching experts such as Arsene Wenger and England manager Sven Goran Eriksson, was keen to tackle the problem which has seen top players, such as France's Zinedane Zidane and England's Paul Scholes, hang up their international boots after Euro 2004.
"There has been a lot of talk about players being too tired and referees lacking consistency at recent major tournaments and on the whole I would agree with that talk," Blatter said.
Under the new proposals, which Fifa hopes to ratify at its December Executive Committee meeting, national associations will have to end their domestic league and cup games by May 14 2006.
There would then be an eight-day rest period, before players join their national squads for 17 days of preparation before the the World Cup in Germany kicks off on June 9.
Fifa's strategic studies committee also agreed on the necessity of cutting the number of matches played each year in an attempt to protect players and avoid burnout.

World Cup Opening Game

15 Sept 2004

Tor!: Story of German Football

Germany's World Cup Organizing Committee chairman, Franz Beckenbauer has hinted that new coach Jurgen Klinsmann would prefer Germany not to play in the opening match of the 2006 World Cup in Munich and reigning World champions Brazil take their place instead to give the German team 3 extra days to prepare for the tournament. Klinsmann is also opposed to having the national team train in Leverkusen, a decision made by his predecessor, Rudi Voller. The choice of Leverkusen as Germany's base was seen as a sop after the city lost out in its bid to stage games at the tournament. Voller, now in charge of AS Roma in Italy's Serie A, was both a player and general manager at Bayer Leverkusen.

World Cup Tickets

19 Aug 2004

CTS Eventim AG, a Frankfurt-based events promotions enterprise, was awarded the contract for ticket sales for the FIFA World Cup 2006 by the Organizing Committee of the German Football Association (DFB), subject to approval by FIFA. CTS will handle the complete World Cup ticketing operation, including administering tickets in its ticketing system, selling tickets and handling tickets at stadiums. CTS will sell roughly three million World Cup tickets for all venues. Turnover from ticket sales is expected to be around US$37m.

Berlin Stadium Reopens

1 Aug 2004

Berlin's refurbished Olympic Stadium - the venue for the 2006 World Cup final - reopened on Saturday 31 July with a spectacular ceremony. The German federal government subsidised the majority of the estimated US$ 295 million cost to modernise the 74,845-seat stadium in a four-year rebuilding program. The gray stone 1930s Nazi-era exterior was left intact though the designers have added a translucent wing-like roof. "Berlin certainly has not only one of the best stadiums in the world, but also one that has also preserved its original monumental architecture," German Interior Minister Otto Schily said on Saturday.
A new museum near the main entrance and 35 plaques throughout the stadium explain the history of the stadium, which was built to stage the 1936 Olympics and glorify the Nazi regime. One of the plaques will mark Hitler's "Fuehrerloge" or "Fuehrer box" (now known as the "Ehrenloge" or "VIP box"), where Hitler watched the games and was filmed by Leni Riefenstahl in her documentary "Olympia".

FIFA Turns Down TV, Marketing Offer

Badfellas: FIFA Family At War

FIFA has turned down a US$1.56bn offer for the TV and marketing rights to the 2010 and 2014 World Cups from International Sports and Entertainment, a Zurich-based sports marketing group. The bid is more than the estimated US$1.23bn FIFA will collect for the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, in Korea/Japan and Germany, despite the fact that the 2010 and 2014 World Cups will be held in less profitable markets.
The 2010 tournament will be held in South Africa with the 2014 World Cup staged in South America, where the five-hour difference in kick-off times will not suit the major European markets.
International Sports and Entertainment (ISE) is backed by the French marketing group Publicis and Japan's largest advertising agency Dentsu. FIFA is looking to sell the rights itself in key markets rather than offload the whole rights package of TV, hospitality, licensing, new media and marketing to one corporation. The bankruptcy of International Sports Media & Marketing (ISMM) in the run-up to the 2002 World Cup brought in to question FIFA's whole financial handling of their prize asset. This time around FIFA may be about to go it alone and follow the lead of the English Premier League, which has increased its income for overseas rights even though the market for live football in general is on a downward curve.

FIFA Forgive Cameroon

FIFA has rescinded its decision to dock Cameroon six points in their African qualifying campaign as a penalty for sporting one-piece shirts and shorts in the African Nations Cup. FIFA's god-like President Sepp Blatter described the FIFA reversal as an "act of grace". A fine of US$155,000 remains in effect however. The decision should see group favorites Cameroon reach their sixth World Cup Finals in Germany.

World Cup 2010: South Africa

South Africa was chosen as the host country of the 2010 Fifa World Cup by Fifa executives meeting in Zurich, Switzerland May 15. South won on the first round of voting beating off the challenges of Morocco and Egypt. The joint bid of Libya and Tunisia was not considered by the judges. The voting was 14-10 in favor of South Africa over Morocco. The 2010 Fifa World Cup will be the first staged in Africa.

World Cup 2006 Tickets On Sale From February 2005

Germany's World Cup Organizing Committee announced that tickets for the 2006 World Cup finals would go on sale from February 1, 2005. The approximately 3.2 million tickets will be made available over the Internet as well as through postal order forms. "We want to make the sale of World Cup tickets as transparent and fair as possible," said Horst R. Schmidt, the vice-president of the World Cup Organizing Committee with responsibility for ticketing. "We know already that the demand will far exceed the supply. Ticket prices range from €35-€600 and FIFA organizers are anticipating around US$236 million in revenues from ticket sales and none of the problems that affected distribution and Internet sales at the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan.

South Africa Gets 2006 Homeless World Cup

The Big Issue.

South Africa will host the week-long Homeless World Cup soccer tournament in Cape Town in 2006. As in the bidding for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, South Africa was battling against Germany to host the event but this time came out on top. Eighteen teams sponsored by their country's streetpapers participated in the first Homeless World Cup in Graz, Austria, held in 2003. South Africa's Big Issue team reached the quarter-finals. The 2004 Homeless World Cup is in Gothenburg, Sweden, with 32 teams taking part.
For further details www.streetsoccer.org

2010: A 2 Horse Race

Morocco and South Africa are locked in a two-horse race to host the 2010 World Cup, according to Alan Rothenberg, the senior international officer for the Moroccan bid. "South Africa is our main rival. Egypt, Tunisia and Libya are also bidding but, at the end of the day, I think it's a two-horse race," Rothenberg told Reuters news agency. South Africa missed out by one vote on hosting the 2006 finals after Oceania delegate Charles Dempsey abstained but Rothenberg poured cold water on a sympathy vote clinching the cup for the South Africans. "The sympathy part is much more in the eyes of the fans and maybe the media," said the former US Soccer Federation President. "The EXCO members, who make the selection, will pretty much start with a clean slate and say 'OK, it doesn't matter what happened before, what does it look like now?'" FIFA will announce the host nation for the 2010 World Cup on May 15 with only African nations allowed in the bidding.

FIFA Get Shirty With Cameroon

Cameroon are appealing to FIFA over the decision by soccer's world governing body to deduct six points from the team in their African qualifying group after Cameroon ignored warnings and wore a one-piece kit in this year's African Nations Cup. Cameroon are in Group 3 alongside Benin, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Libya and Sudan. Only the top team in the group qualifies for the finals in Germany. Cameroon were also fined a hefty US$153,000. Cameroon have something of history of dress code violations after trying to play in sleeveless shirts at the 2002 World Cup.

Beer Row Brewing

German Beer.

Officials in Munich, including the local Greens Party leader, Sepp Duerr, are protesting FIFA's exclusive sponsors' contract with Anheuser-Busch which allows only for the company's Budweiser brand to be sold inside World Cup stadiums.
Munich is world famous for its annual beer festival - the Oktoberfest - and Herr Duerr is angered that local German beers won't get a look in at Germany's World Cup grounds:
"When the world comes to Bavaria in 2006, our guests should be able to rely on learning about our unique cultural goods", he protested.

Munich's New Stadium Scandal

March 9 2004

The Allianz Arena.

The club president of TSV 1860 Munich Karl-Heinz Wildmoser was arrested on charges of accepting €2.8m (US$3.3m) in bribes from the construction company - Alpine - that won the tender to build the new World Cup stadium in Munich, which will be shared by TSV and Bayern Munich. The amount, calculated as 1% of the total construction costs, was allegedly paid to Herr Wildmoser, his son Heinzi and two associates in return for inside information on other bids for the new stadium: Wolfgang Niersbach, the Germany 2006 organizing committee's vice-president, told German radio. "I sincerely hope, based on what the finals mean for our country, that there won't be anything else emerging that we don't know about today."
Wildmoser, who protests his innocence, made his money in part from beer tents at Munich's Oktoberfest and moved TSV away from their previous home at the Grünwalder Strasse stadium into a ground share with Bayern and into division one of the Bundesliga. He was not popular with fans and stepped down as club president after his arrest.

The latest corruption claim follows allegations in the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung that Bayern Munich and a company linked to media baron Leo Kirch bribed four small Fifa federations to vote for Germany's World Cup bid, which they surprising won 12-11 over the favorites South Africa. As a pay-off, Bayern would play friendly games in the four federations and Kirch would subsidise the TV rights. Franz Beckenbauer, president of Germany's World Cup organizing committee's has denied the allegations.
The stories have damaged Germany's long-held reputation for "clean-hands", according to the mass-circulation Bild newspaper: "Germany is in a state of shock. A first shadow has been cast on our beautiful World Cup. The whole world is watching us, and even more critically now."

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