100 Days To The World Cup
The airliners appear out of the cloud cover hanging over the city, their landing gear jolting into place and the whine of their engines growing louder as they drop toward the runways of Charles de Gaulle International Airport, outside Paris.
Before long, having cleared customs and blinked uncomprehendingly at the bewildering array of French signs, the arriving passengers are on the road.
And invariably, if they are heading into the city on Route A1 by taxi or shuttle bus, they will not be long into the journey before their driver turns and points out France’s newest landmark.
In 1998, it is not the Louvre or the Arc de Triomphe or the Eiffel Tower that is supposed to capture the attention of international visitors to Paris.
It is Le Stade de France.
It is in this futuristic, 80,000-seat, $422-million, elliptical bowl in Saint-Denis on Paris’ northern edge that World Cup ’98 will begin in 100 days.
Soccer’s quadrennial world championship, returning to the country it last visited six decades ago, will kick off with a game between world champion Brazil and Scotland on June 10.
The sport and the country are vastly different from 1938, when, in a tribute to Jules Rimet, the Frenchman who founded the competition, France first hosted the World Cup.
Today, the tournament is the largest and most popular single-sport event in the world. Only the Olympic Games rival it in scope and popularity.
And France ’98 will be the biggest World Cup yet.
It took 643 qualifying matches over almost two years to reduce the 170 countries that wanted to take part to the 30 that eventually joined France, the host, and Brazil, the defending champion, in the final field of 32.
It will take another 64 games to produce the next world champion on July 12, also in Le Stade de France.
Is France ready?
The verdict is still out. The country has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in preparing to play host to the world.
The flying saucer-shaped Le Stade de France is the only new stadium built specifically for the World Cup, but each of the other nine World Cup venues around the country have been reconstructed, renovated or spruced up.
There have been other costs.
For example, France has spent $229 million improving rail links between Paris and Le Stade de France.
The reason why offers a good example of the shortcomings that could could cause havoc this summer. The country’s newest stadium--the possible site for track and field’s World Championships in 2001 or 2003 and a cornerstone of any future Olympic bid by Paris--has only 6,000 parking spaces.
That means public transportation is essential. Organizers and private enterprise are at least being innovative in addressing the problem. Free rail passes will be available for some of the matches, and the leisure class has an even better way to reach the stadium.
The Saint-Denis waterway runs alongside Le Stade de France, and riverboat companies that usually ply tourists up and down the Seine now plan to carry World Cup fans from the city center and back, serving champagne along the way on the two-hour cruise.
There has been innovation in other areas too. The official France ’98 poster, for example, was designed by Nathalie Le Gall, a young art student from Montpellier who admitted to having no interest in soccer.
“But I’ve always respected the passion for the sport,” she said.
And last weekend, France unveiled a circular postage stamp in honor of the tournament, the first round stamp in French history and an instant collector’s item. Designer Louis Briat autographed first-day envelopes Monday at the foot of the Eiffel tower.
The official World Cup web site, www.france98.com, has clocked up to 2.2 million visitors and 130 million hits from 160 countries since it opened last May.
But the physical preparation and all the ancillary color aren’t causing anxiety around Europe. It is more serious organizational shortcomings.
In short, tickets and hooligans.
The most intense and heated debate in recent weeks has focused on the allocation and distribution of tickets.
France has taken the lion’s share for itself, determining that 60% would be sold to the French public. Another 20% went to FIFA, the sport’s governing body, and a far smaller percentage was distributed to participating countries.
The plan has led to furious complaints from the Belgians, the Dutch, the English, the Germans, the Scots, citizens of almost every nation, in fact, that could have sold out the tournament.
“Since we qualified [in November], we’ve had 200 calls a day from people wanting tickets,” said Steve Double, a spokesman for England’s football association. “A lot are going to be disappointed. Tickets are going to be like gold dust.”
People are fighting over them as if they were.
“We haven’t even got enough to satisfy the demand of those who have a right to a seat,” said Jan Peeters, general secretary of the Belgian football union. “I can’t believe spectators are going to be excluded in this way.”
Neither could the European Commission, which two weeks ago threatened to sue the French Organizing Committee unless it made more tickets available throughout the 15-nation European Union.
As an example of the few tickets made available by the French, England received only 3,790 for its game in Marseilles against Tunisia; 2,749 for its match against Romania in Toulouse and 2,589 for Colombia in Lens.
“These allocations are even smaller than we’d anticipated in the worst circumstance,” said David Davies of the English football association. “Our reaction is one of dismay and astonishment.”
The English have been especially vociferous in their protests, leading to a sharper-than-usual response from FIFA spokesman Keith Cooper, himself a Englishman.
“The longer England keeps protesting about the ticket allocation for their fans this summer, the more they tighten the noose around the neck of their application [to stage the World Cup in] 2006,” Cooper told Reuters.
“Is England saying it would give up thousands of extra tickets to the French, Dutch, Germans and Italians if it is awarded 2006? We think not.
“It is a generally acknowledged part of the host nation’s package of privileges that it has first claim on a majority of the seats. The Spanish are among several European countries who would also have liked more tickets. But their fans are not saying they will set fire to Paris in frustration.”
On Sunday, FIFA stepped in to try to quell the unrest.
“We have asked France for the remaining tickets that were reserved for the retail market in France to be returned to FIFA,” Joseph “Sepp” Blatter, FIFA’s general secretary and a possible candidate for the FIFA presidency in the June 8 election, told German television.
“That will allow the federations of the countries in the finals to get more tickets.”
The main concern among soccer leaders and politicians is that the unavailability of tickets on the open market means that thousands of fans will come to France and try to buy them on what is sure to be a thriving black market, despite precautions.
Those who fail could turn to hooliganism out of frustration. With no control on the sale of such tickets, there will be no way to segregate fans within the stadiums, leading to other potential problems.
Police chiefs from the European Union countries competing in France ’98 attended a seminar in Blackburn, England, last week to discuss ways of preventing violence during the World Cup.
Each country will send a team of police “spotters” to France to identify known hooligans. Other measures also have been taken.
At Le Stade de France, for instance, the architecturally stunning “floating” roof of steel and glass is not the only innovation. Security cameras also have been installed. More than 800 police, including an elite anti-terrorist squad, were on duty when the stadium was opened Jan. 28 with a game between France and Spain. Another 2,500 police were on duty outside.
No untoward incidents occurred, but then the crowd was mostly French.
And perhaps that is France’s plan. Perhaps by limiting the 16th World Cup to mostly French fans, it is hoping to shut out the problems before they arrive.
Of course, there is a French word for that too:
Naive.
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World Cup at a Glance
FIRST-ROUND PLAY
* Group A: Brazil, Morocco, Norway, Scotland.
* Group B: Austria, Cameroon, Chile, Italy.
* Group C: Denmark, France, Saudi Arabia, South Africa.
* Group D: Bulgaria, Nigeria, Paraguay, Spain.
* Group E: Belgium, Mexico, Netherlands, South Korea.
* Group F: Germany, Iran, United States, Yugoslavia.
* Group G: Colombia, England, Romania, Tunisia.
* Group H: Argentina, Croatia, Jamaica, Japan.
Each team plays the three others in its group, the winner and runner-up in each group advancing to the round of 16, when single-elimination play begins.
****
ODDS
3-1: Brazil
6-1: France
7-1: Germany, Italy
8-1: England, Netherlands
12-1: Argentina
16-1: Spain
20-1: Nigeria
25-1: Croatia, Yugoslavia
40-1: Belgium, Romania
50-1: Bulgaria, Colombia, Denmark, Norway
80-1: Paraguay
100-1: Austria, Cameroon, Chile, Scotland, South Africa
150-1: Mexico
200-1: Morocco, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, United States
250-1: Jamaica, Japan, Tunisia
300-1: Iran
****
VENUES
SAINT-DENIS--STADE DE FRANCE
* Built: New.
* Capacity: 80,000.
*
PARIS--PARC DES PRINCES
* Built: 1972.
* Capacity: 49,700.
*
MARSEILLES--VELODROME STADIUM
* Built: 1937, renovated 1984.
* Capacity: 60,000.
*
LENS-FELIX--BOLLAERT STADIUM
* Built: 1934, renovated 1984.
* Capacity: 35,050.
*
NANTES--BEAUJOIRE STADIUM
* Built: 1984.
* Capacity: 40,000.
*
TOULOUSE--MUNICIPAL STADIUM
* Built: 1950, renovated 1983.
* Capacity: 37,638.
*
SAINT-ETTIENE--GEOFFROY GUICHARD STADIUM
* Built: 1931, renovated 1984.
* Capacity: 35,924.
*
MONTPELLIER--MOSSON STADIUM
* Built: 1900, reconstructed 1987.
* Capacity: 35,500.
*
LYON--GERLAND STADIUM
* Built: 1920, renovated 1984.
* Capacity: 32,000.
*
BORDEAUX--LESCURE PARK
* Built: 1934, renovated 1988.
* Capacity: 36,500.
