BoyElroy
02-27-2006, 03:07 PM
Agence France Presse -- English
February 27, 2006 Monday 6:37 AM GMT
HEADLINE: With World Cup looming, German organisers dismiss stadium concerns
DATELINE: BERLIN, Feb 26 2006
BODY:
With 100 days to go until football's World Cup kicks off in Germany, the organisers have batted away concerns about stadium safety, but a debate is raging about whether the army should be allowed to help the police reinforce security.
With the Winter Olympics in Turin just completed, the sporting world's attention will switch to what is arguably a far more global event.
That means there will be no place to hide for the organising committee between now and the opening match between Germany and Costa Rica in Munich on June 9.
The draw for the 64-match, month-long tournament has been made, and all 32 teams have chosen their training bases, with only Ukraine opting for the former communist east of Germany.
But a German consumer protection watchdog threw a spanner in the otherwise relatively smooth running of the organisational machine when it warned in January of "serious deficiencies" in four of the 12 stadiums to be used for the tournament.
The independent group released a study purporting to show that the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, where the final will be played on July 9, the Veltins Arena in the western city of Gelsenkirchen and Leipzig's Zentralstadion in eastern Germany were poorly equipped to cope with a stampede in the event of crowd trouble.
A fourth stadium -- Fritz Walter in the southwestern city of Kaiserslautern -- was said to have serious faults in its fire-proofing system.
The study sparked an angry reaction from the president of the organising committee, Franz Beckenbauer, who suggested the body stick to analysing "face lotions, olive oils and vacuum cleaners".
Beckenbauer's deputy, Horst Schmidt, was equally critical.
"The image this study gives our stadiums in Germany or abroad does not correspond at all to reality: these stadiums have in place the most efficient security measures possible," Schmidt said.
However, it was announced without fanfare this month that the Berlin stadium -- built for the infamous 'Nazi Olympics' of 1936 and renovated for the World Cup at a cost of 242 million euros (287 million dollars) -- would be modified to respond to some of the consumer group's concerns.
Twenty bridges will be built over a three-metre-wide (10-foot-wide) moat which separates the stands from the pitch.
The organisers were also embarrassed by the cancellation of a pre-World Cup gala to have been held at the Berlin stadium.
World football's governing body FIFA said new studies had shown the pitch may not have recovered from the rock music extravaganza that was to have taken place on June 7, six days before the first match there.
But press reports suggested poor ticket sales were the real reason for the decision.
With Germany about to host its highest-profile sporting event since the terrorist-scarred 1972 Munich Olympics, security is a hot issue.
In the light of Germany's Nazi past, the country's constitution stipulates that the army can only operate within the country's borders in the event of a war or a catastrophe, which raises the issue of whether it will be called in to assist the police in security duties for the World Cup.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she can imagine soldiers being deployed for the tournament without the constitution being changed.
The head of the German football federation, Theo Zwanziger, warned that measures such as stationing tanks around the stadiums would destroy the friendly atmosphere the organisers want to create.
"The mixture of police and military duties is dangerous. Our history has taught us that. And a World Cup is not in any way a reason to deviate from that principle," Zwanziger told Die Zeit weekly newspaper.
While a decision on the army is still to be taken, it is known that at least 2,000 German soldiers, including specialist biological warfare units, will be mobilized for the World Cup.
Many of those troops, however, will be setting up emergency hospitals.
Many previous World Cups have been plagued by problems with ticket sales, but each stage of the process for this tournament has been massively over-subscribed, with the final allocation being decided by lottery.
gj/pvh
LOAD-DATE: February 27, 2006
February 27, 2006 Monday 6:37 AM GMT
HEADLINE: With World Cup looming, German organisers dismiss stadium concerns
DATELINE: BERLIN, Feb 26 2006
BODY:
With 100 days to go until football's World Cup kicks off in Germany, the organisers have batted away concerns about stadium safety, but a debate is raging about whether the army should be allowed to help the police reinforce security.
With the Winter Olympics in Turin just completed, the sporting world's attention will switch to what is arguably a far more global event.
That means there will be no place to hide for the organising committee between now and the opening match between Germany and Costa Rica in Munich on June 9.
The draw for the 64-match, month-long tournament has been made, and all 32 teams have chosen their training bases, with only Ukraine opting for the former communist east of Germany.
But a German consumer protection watchdog threw a spanner in the otherwise relatively smooth running of the organisational machine when it warned in January of "serious deficiencies" in four of the 12 stadiums to be used for the tournament.
The independent group released a study purporting to show that the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, where the final will be played on July 9, the Veltins Arena in the western city of Gelsenkirchen and Leipzig's Zentralstadion in eastern Germany were poorly equipped to cope with a stampede in the event of crowd trouble.
A fourth stadium -- Fritz Walter in the southwestern city of Kaiserslautern -- was said to have serious faults in its fire-proofing system.
The study sparked an angry reaction from the president of the organising committee, Franz Beckenbauer, who suggested the body stick to analysing "face lotions, olive oils and vacuum cleaners".
Beckenbauer's deputy, Horst Schmidt, was equally critical.
"The image this study gives our stadiums in Germany or abroad does not correspond at all to reality: these stadiums have in place the most efficient security measures possible," Schmidt said.
However, it was announced without fanfare this month that the Berlin stadium -- built for the infamous 'Nazi Olympics' of 1936 and renovated for the World Cup at a cost of 242 million euros (287 million dollars) -- would be modified to respond to some of the consumer group's concerns.
Twenty bridges will be built over a three-metre-wide (10-foot-wide) moat which separates the stands from the pitch.
The organisers were also embarrassed by the cancellation of a pre-World Cup gala to have been held at the Berlin stadium.
World football's governing body FIFA said new studies had shown the pitch may not have recovered from the rock music extravaganza that was to have taken place on June 7, six days before the first match there.
But press reports suggested poor ticket sales were the real reason for the decision.
With Germany about to host its highest-profile sporting event since the terrorist-scarred 1972 Munich Olympics, security is a hot issue.
In the light of Germany's Nazi past, the country's constitution stipulates that the army can only operate within the country's borders in the event of a war or a catastrophe, which raises the issue of whether it will be called in to assist the police in security duties for the World Cup.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she can imagine soldiers being deployed for the tournament without the constitution being changed.
The head of the German football federation, Theo Zwanziger, warned that measures such as stationing tanks around the stadiums would destroy the friendly atmosphere the organisers want to create.
"The mixture of police and military duties is dangerous. Our history has taught us that. And a World Cup is not in any way a reason to deviate from that principle," Zwanziger told Die Zeit weekly newspaper.
While a decision on the army is still to be taken, it is known that at least 2,000 German soldiers, including specialist biological warfare units, will be mobilized for the World Cup.
Many of those troops, however, will be setting up emergency hospitals.
Many previous World Cups have been plagued by problems with ticket sales, but each stage of the process for this tournament has been massively over-subscribed, with the final allocation being decided by lottery.
gj/pvh
LOAD-DATE: February 27, 2006