Turning to the 2006 World Cup in Germany, has FIFA identified any issues that need addressing?
This World Cup is like a home game for us because we’re right next door. I must pay a compliment to our colleagues responsible for the organisation in Germany. When they take something on they do it properly. It’s better than first class. In terms of organisation I don’t think anything can go wrong now, apart from the kind of thing we in football and society in general cannot influence – a natural disaster for example. You can never be 100 percent sure. The small ticket quotas for German fans have attracted strong criticism in the country. You’ve adopted a slogan which says ‘A time to make friends’, so the host nation can’t have all the tickets. A couple of thousand tickets for the hosts isn’t a lot. The fact is that two million applications have come in and more than 80 percent are from Germany. In all probability a majority of the tickets in the first sales phase will go to German fans. And more tickets will come on the market after the first phase. Some two-thirds of the tickets won
