Congratulations to the Socceroos
Australia’s nail-biting win in the soccer last night will mean a rush for tickets and travel to Germany for the 2006 World Cup.
The event, which begins in June 2006, 204 days from now, will take place across 12 cities in Germany and attract hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Host cities are: Munich, Berlin, Cologne, Dortmund, Frankfurt, Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg, Kaiserslautern,Leipzig, Nuremburg and Stuttgtart.
More than a million people have applied for tickets for the 2006 World Cup. This is 12 times more than the available seats. Cup organizers made available 812,000 tickets for the two-month sales period that ended on March 31.
As at the 2002 World Cup in Korea/Japan authorities in Germany are gearing up for the double threat of terrorism and hooliganism. With thousands of ticketless fans gathering in city centers to watch the games on big screens, police fear such events could make for soft terrorist targets as well as potential flashpoints for hooliganism. Police chiefs expect at least 25,000 ticketless English fans to congregate in the cities where England’s games will be held. As for the threat of terror, though undeniably a worry, it would appear something of an own goal if al Qaeda were to disrupt the tournament what with three countries from the Muslim world taking part: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Tunisia with perhaps Turkey to follow, plus massive interest in the game throughout the Islamic world.
A German company is proposing to open a 60-room brothel called “Artemis” complete with 100 prostitutes, jacuzzi, sauna, cinema and restaurant near the Olympic Stadium in Berlin in September. Prostitution is legal in Germany in designated areas under certain conditions. Dortmund also plans to open drive-in wooden “sex garages” prior to the finals, according to Reuters news agency, in an attempt to keep the sex trade off the streets. Berlin’s gay mayor Klaus Wowereit is opposed to the “Artemis” project.
For information about the event go to the official site at http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/
Graham Muldoon
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