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The CFO in Singapore |
| Football Expo 98, the world’s first football fair, took place between 6 and 8 January in Singapore. The event was organised by Football Expo Ltd in collaboration with FIFA, and received support from the Asiatic football confederation. |
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Aside from the football fair itself, conferences and debates were the order of the day at this brand new world football get-together, organised by Jean-Marc Presti (left). Sepp Blater, General Secretary of FIFA, Dato Peter Velappan, General Secretary of the AFC, and Michel Platini were on hand to cut the traditional inaugurating ribbon. Jacques Lambert, the CFO Managing Director and Jacques Bouillon, the CFO Director of Media and Telecommunications, took the occasion to give a run-down of what FRANCE 98 involves to all those present, including the international press. Michel Platini and Jacques Lambert also joined François Barry Martin de Longchamps, the French Ambassador in Singapore, and Laurent Maubon, Director of Sales and Marketing for the Monnaie de Paris (Paris Mint), to launch the official World Cup coin collection in Singapore.
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Toulouse puts them in the picture |
On 4 February, Dominique Baudis, the Mayor of Toulouse, invited members of the media from the nations that will be playing a first round game in Toulouse as of 10 June (Cameroon, Austria, Argentina, Japan, South Africa, Denmark, Romania, England, Nigeria and Paraguay), to a press conference in the city. The mayor used the occasion to describe the sort of welcome everybody will receive, and to offer details about the Toulouse public transport system and the numerous entertainments being planned for the World Cup, the large majority of which will centre around the city’s impressive river Garonne.
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Team warm-up |
Representatives from the 32 World Cup teams will be meeting up for a FIFA seminar between 8 and 10 March at the Méridien hotel in Montparnasse, Paris, where they will be given a run-down on the sporting and logistical aspects of the organisation. A little later in the year, between 6 and 8 April, members of FIFA will be making their final technical visits to the ten FRANCE 98 stadiums.
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PHILFOOT : 3,000 leave their stamp… |
The Philfoot competition for the best collection of football stamps, open to under-21s, has been a phenomenal success with more than 3,000 entrants from all 10 host cities. The competition is jointly organised by the CFO, La Poste and AFCOS, and the competing collections will be displayed at all the World Cup venues from 28 February to 7 March. The ten winners will be invited to the round of sixteen match taking place at the Stade de France on 28 June. For further information, contact Jean-Pierre Picquot at the CFO, on (33) 1 44 14 89 50.
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VOLUNTEERS : testing, testing… |
It’s rehearsal time! Volunteers at the venues are to go through their paces during forthcoming French League matches, and during the League Cup Final at the Stade de France. These full dress rehearsals will be taking place during March and April. However, Lyon and Marseille, which passed their own test runs with flying colours during the Tournoi de France and the Finals Draw, will not be included. The next set of volunteers to try out their skills will be those at Toulouse on 13 March during the Toulouse-Lyon match. On this occasion, the “Telecom Volunteers” will be taking up their positions, together with the stewarding team (who assist spectators, check tickets and oversee access to the pitch) and those working at the first aid stations.
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The neigh-bourhood cup |
In Lyon, the World Cup has already kicked off! Beginning on 20 December last year, the “Neighbourhood Cup” project has got the whole city – the whole of the Rhône-Alpes region, rather – swinging to the rhythm of FRANCE 98. The object of the exercise is to combine football with other fun activities for young people between the ages of 10 and 18 in Lyon and its neighbourhoods. Football tournaments are being staged for non-registered players as well as a large number of festive and cultural events. And during the World Cup itself, a “Neighbourhood Cup mini-village” will move around between five different neighbourhoods in the city. A non-stop party!
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Saint-Etienne celebrates |
At the end of January, Saint-Etienne Mayor Michel Thiollière presented the list of entertainments planned for the city during the World Cup at a press conference. The city’s aim is to show off the numerous features of Saint-Etienne and its surrounding region, and to put on a big party every evening to foster exchanges between locals and visitors. These events will concentrate on three aspects: fun and games (notably for children), culture (with a number of exhibitions) and the economy (bringing together top-level managers, both French and foreign, from the business community).
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Handing over |
The CFO venue teams will shortly be moving into an operational phase as they begin decorating and setting up the stadiums for the World Cup competition. The ten stadiums are to be handed over to FRANCE 98 organisers between 27 April and 18 May, as follows:
• Nantes (27 April) • Toulouse, Montpellier, Lens (2 May) • Bordeaux, Marseille, Paris and Lyon (4 May) • Saint-Etienne (13 May)
• Saint-Denis (18 May)
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The official Referees |
With 32 teams playing in the FIFA World Cup finals in 1998, a higher number than ever before, more referees and assistant referees will be needed for the 64 matches. As a result, FIFA’s refereeing committee has this time named 34 refs and 33 assistant refs for FRANCE 98. The 1994 World Cup in the USA called on 24 refs and 22 assistant refs. The 67 officials were chosen on merit from among a large pool of candidates. The “men in black” are to be briefed by FIFA and undergo physical fitness tests during a work seminar between 23 and 27 March 1998 at the Manoir de Gressy near Paris. This will also be where the referees will be staying between matches during the competition itself. During the seminar the referees will also learn how to use the new electronic device, the “Signal Bip,” which will improve communication between referees and their assistants. This device had its first outing during the Olympic tournament in 1996, and has been used successfully ever since in all FIFA tournaments.
Asia
Referees: Abdul Rahman Al Zeid, (Saudi Arabia), Ali Mohamed Bujsaim, (United Arab Emirates), Masayoshi Okada (Japan), Pirom Un-Prasert (Thailand)
Assistant Referees: Mohamed Ahmed Al Musawi (Oman), Hussein Ghadanfari (Kuwait) Halim Halim Abdul Hamid (Malaysia), Young Hyun Jeon (South Korea), Muhamad Wickeramatunge Samarathna (Sri Lanka).
Africa
Referees: Said Belqola (Morocco), Gamal Ghandour (Egypt), An-Yan Lim Kee Chong (Mauritius), Lucien Bouchardeau (Niger), Charles Masembe (Uganda)
Assistant Referees: Dramane Dante (Mali), Mohamed Mansri (Tunisia), Achmat Salie (South Africa), Aristidis Chris Soldatos (South Africa).
North and Central America
Referees: Esfandiar Baharmast (USA), Arturo Brizio Carter (Mexico), Ramesh Ramdhan, (Trinidad and Tobago).
Assistant Referees: Merere Louis Gonzales (Trinidad and Tobago), Owen Powell (Jamaica), Elias Salinas Rostran (Honduras), Luis Fernando Torres Zuniga (Costa Rica).
South America
Referees: Javier Castrilli (Argentina), Epifanio Gonzalez Chavez (Paraguay), Marció Rezende de Freitas (Brazil), Mario Sanchez Yanten (Chile), Alberto Tejada Noriega (Peru), John Jairo Toro Rendon (Colombia)
Assistant Referees: Jorge Luis Arango Cardona (Colombia), Jorge Alberto Diaz Galvez (Chile), Celestino Galvan Soto (Paraguay), Arnaldo de Menezes Pinto Filho (Brazil), Claudio Anibal Rossi (Argentina).
Oceania
Referee: Edward Lennie (Australia)
Assistant Referee: Lencie Fred (Vanuatu).
Europe
Referees: Marc Batta (France), Gunter Benko (Austria), Pierluigi Collina (Italy), Hugh Dallas (Scotland), Paul Durkin (England), Anders Frisk (Sweden), Jose-Manuel Garcia Aranda (Spain), Bernd Heynemann (Germany), Nikolai Levnikov (Russia), Urs Meier (Switzerland), Manuel Melo Pereira (Portugal) Kim Milton Nielsen, (Denmark), Rune Pedersen (Norway) László Vagner (Hungary), Mario Van der Ende (The Netherlands)
Assistant Referees: Evzen Amler (Czech Republic), Youri Dupanov (Belorussia), Eddie Foley (Ireland), Nicolae Grigorescu (Romania), Gennaro Mazzei (Italy), Michael Nilsson (Sweden), Jacek Pociegiel (Poland), Jacques Poudevigne (France), Laurent Rausis (Switzerland), Erich Schneider (Germany), Fernando Tresaco Gracia (Spain), Marc Van Den Broeck (Belgium), Mark Warren (England), Emanuel Zammit (Malta).
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“World Cup Footballers…” |
A “good conduct” charter designed for the 704 World Cup players has been drawn up by French teenagers. It will be read out on 10 June at the Stade de France before the Opening match.
Marie-George Buffet, Minister for Youth Affairs and Sport, Joseph Blatter, General Secretary of FIFA, and Michel Platini, Co-President of the CFO, were enormously taken with the fair play charter drawn up by a group of schoolchildren |
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For once, at the Henri Matisse college at Choisy-le-Roi in the Paris suburbs, it was the pupils who were the teachers. And Marie-George Buffet, the Minister for Youth Affairs and Sport, Joseph Blatter, General Secretary of FIFA, Michel Platini, Co-President of the French Organising Committee and Claude Simonet, President of the French Football Federation, all sat listening attentively.
The subject on Tuesday 13 January consisted virtually of a whole course on “public-spiritedness,” during which the pupils presented their “good conduct” charter, drawn up for the 704 World Cup players (see inset). The main inspiration for this splendid initiative came from Yves Quiniou, a teacher at the college, whose twin brother Joël Quiniou, an ex-international referee, is today working in the competition department at the French Organis-ing Committee. The project really began two years ago, when the college teachers, in an attempt to combat disciplinary problems and instil a sense of civic responsibility into their students, asked them to debate the subject of “respecting others.” Eventually, these discussions turned to sport and from there arose the idea of drawing up a World Cup fair play charter. The Charter’s seven clauses were formulated and worked on by four classes of 11-year-olds and one class of 13-year-olds (see inset).
But that is by no means the point where this charming gesture ends, because Joseph Blatter, touched by “the sincerity and simplicity of the wording,” has promised that the Charter shall be read out before the 80,000 fans present for the Opening Match on 10 June between Brazil and Scotland. The pupils in Choisy-le-Roi couldn’t have dreamt of a more auspicious occasion!
THE CHARTER
• Take us to another world by playing fairly, playing well, and playing in the spirit of peace.
• Respect all the rules, and make all your supporters happy.
• Show us your loyalty by respecting the referees’ decisions, and never arguing.
• Respect your opponents in the same way as your team-mates, and leave your bad temper behind in the changing room
• Never behave violently, and always keep your self-control.
• Give everything you’ve got, then accept defeat gracefully, and celebrate your victories like true sportsmen.
• Take us to another world, let’s all stand together, and our dreams will come true.
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A Stade is born ! |
At D-133, the Stade de France at Saint-Denis was officially inaugurated. And despite the bitter cold the occasion was a great success.
All bodes well for FRANCE 98! It’s happened! The Stade de France, which is to stage nine World Cup games, not least the Final itself, has at last been officially inaugurated. French President Jacques Chirac was present at the proceedings on Wednesday 28 January, which fell into two separate halves: a show, and a “friendly” game between France and Spain (see inset). At around 7.15 p.m. the magnificent oval arena was plunged into darkness, the signal for a five-part light and laser show to begin. The final tableau consisted of twenty or so “elastonauts” floating above the stadium, symbolising the creative spirit and modernist thinking that went into designing the ground. And the 78,834 spectators – a new attendance record for a sports complex in France – started up the first ever wave in the stadium’s history, even before some of France’s most famous sporting names came onto the pitch for the inauguration itself.
“VICTORY”
A huge tricolour ribbon was stretched out by the champions, and cut by two teen-agers from the Seine-Saint-Denis region. The singer Liane Foly then sang the Stade de France anthem, a song called “Victoire” (“Victory”), and one which set the tone for the French team, which later triumphed over Spain, Zinedine Zidane becoming the first player to officially score a goal in the SDF (see inset). Aside from the celebrations and the match itself, the inauguration of the Stade de France, the venue which is to host the most games during the World Cup, was an excellent dry run, particularly with regard to stadium access. And everything went well. The spectators behaved impeccably and stuck to the authorities’ recommendations that they use public transport (metro, bus and regional commuter trains) to reach the stadium, and thus avoid creating endless traffic jams around the ground. This was all very encouraging for the FRANCE 98 organisers whose next job is to co-organise the League Cup Final on 4 April. And that will be an occasion to try out the Stade’s World Cup stewarding team.
France vs Spain: a whiff of the World Cup
For its first ever match in the brand-new Stade de France, the French team didn’t choose a soft option in inviting Spain, a team they could well run into in the round of sixteen stage of the World Cup. Javier Clemente’s side hadn’t lost a game since the 1994 World Cup (when they were beaten in the quarter-finals by Italy), and had clocked up an impressive 31 victories on the trot.
The “Blues” had promised to demonstrate an attractive new brand of football, and they kept their word. Aside from their win (1-0, Zidane scoring the only goal 20 minutes into the match), the French side captivated their fans on a pitch that wasn’t the easiest in the world (it was minus 6° and the turf was practically frozen). The Zidane-Djorkaeff partnership worked well, and France truly deserved to win against a Spanish team which, there’s no denying, will be up among the favourites next June.
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