Tickets and hooligans, two issues to resolve

The stadiums are ready, the infrastructure is in place and excitement is building across Germany, a month before the start of the World Cup.

The stadiums are ready, the infrastructure is in place and excitement is building across Germany, a month before the start of the World Cup.

8220;We are very, very reassured. Everything is right in our time plan,8221; said Jens Grittner, spokesman for the World Cup organising committee. 8220;We are working calmly on the finishing touches. In fact, things are so calm it is making us a little uneasy.8221; The Germans have one nagging problem they can8217;t solve: the demand for tickets. The 64 matches for the June 9-July 9 event are all sold out, but the requests keep pouring in. Even heads of state have been making late demands for seats for up to 50 people.

8220;The pressure just won8217;t go away. We will have this problem until the final game. We have 3 million tickets 8211; we need 30 million,8221; said Wolfgang Niersbach, vice-president of the organising committee. Germany experienced some headaches with the 12 World Cup stadiums 8211; including a leaking retractable roof in Frankfurt and a broken awning at Kaiserslautern8217;s Fritz-Walter stadium. But organizers say those problems have long been solved as they have poured hundreds of millions of euros into renovating or building new arenas. 8220;We are doing the fine-tuning now. We feel so confident we can say we will offer the best stadiums in the world,8221; Grittner said.

There is hardly a television station whose content isn8217;t dominated by soccer these days, and German companies like Puma, the sports clothing company, are mounting their largest advertising campaign in history 8211; although they aren8217;t one of the World Cup8217;s official sponsors. The German effort to mount a perfect World Cup once led FIFA general secretary Urs Linsi to tell them to 8220;relax.8221;

Some German worries may appear minor to past organizers of major sports events, including the Athens Olympics, where workers were riveting bolts on arenas right up to the opening ceremony.

8220;People have to understand this is a massive, enormous undertaking,8221; Niersbach said. 8220;Things can8217;t go perfectly. We could have a bus breakdown and it may take 30 minutes for the next one to arrive.8221; Security, hooligans and prostitution are more serious concerns. The top police officer in charge of keeping hooligans under control said last week he fears the troublemakers living in Germany more than the those from England or the Netherlands.

8220;What gives me headaches sometimes is thinking about how we are going to keep our own 10,000 hooligans in line,8221; said Michael Endler, head of ZIS, Germany8217;s office for sports information.