May 1997 – N°25 – Report – ENGLISH

The opening of the FRANCE 98 Internet site is palpable evidence of the French Organising Committee’s double ambition: not only to keep the general public and particularly the media comprehensively informed about preparations for FRANCE 98, but also to provide genuine entertainment for site-users by exploiting the advantages of this latest communication tool to the full.

TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS

The Internet site WWW.FRANCE98.COM is the technological baby resulting from the union of the CFO with EDS, France Telecom, Hewlett-Packard and Sybase, four of the FRANCE 98 Official Suppliers. As can be seen, their collaboration has been highly successful. Head of marketing, Philip Villemus says: “The CFO chose these particular technology partners not only because they are leaders in their various fields, but also because they really took on board the spirit and scope of FRANCE 98. They are making a huge contribution to the smooth running of the organisational side of the event. The coming World Cup will be the greatest planetary celebration of the end of the century. And thanks to EDS, France Telecom, Hewlett-Packard and Sybase, we can now involve the whole world in this celebration through our Internet site a whole year away from kick-off.” Philippe Verveer, head of I.T. for FRANCE 98, agrees: “In fact, the CFO has a positive duty to make use of the most recent technology to keep the public and media throughout the world informed of what’s going on. Our technology partners have not only made this possible, but have gone even further than we hoped.”

PICK YOUR LANGUAGE

FRANCE98.COM is available in two languages, French and English. Each version contains hundreds of pages of information on the preparations for FRANCE 98 and World Cup history, and also offers a number of games. On FRANCE98.COM, material on the coming World Cup is divided into six sections: Welcome to the World, The World at Play, Beauty of the Game, News and Media, Souvenirs, and The Playing Field. A ticketing guide and maps of the venues are also to be found. The CFO, FIFA and the French Football Federation, together with the eight FRANCE 98 Official Suppliers, all have detailed profiles in the “Welcome to the World” section. The same goes for the host cities: Bordeaux, Lens, Lyon, Marseille, Montepellier, Nantes, Paris, Saint-Denis, Saint-Etienne and Toulouse. Each is featured in a page describing the economic prowess and cultural splendours of the city and its surrounding area, with important statistics, a brief history and a selection of photos. Putting its key values of synergy and interactivity into practice, the FRANCE 98 site also takes you to the Internet server of the city concerned, and links are soon to be set up with the Mondirésa Web site, enabling FRANCE98.COM users to organise their stay in France well in advance.

INTERACTIVE TRAVEL

As well as providing information about preparations for the competition, the FRANCE 98 site invites users to discover aspects of World Cup history, as Michel Platini explained in a recent world-wide television presentation of the site: “If you want to refresh your memory about the “Mondiale”, the “World Cup” or the “Mundial”, click on “History of the World Cup” in the “Beauty of the Game” section.” The posters of the last 15 World Cups will lead you to all the information you want on teams, scores, the best goal-scorers and the crucial moments in all the finals, starting with the first World Cup in Uruguay in 1930 and going right up to the new frontier of the American World Cup in 1994. Once you have brushed up your memory, you can test your knowledge against that of other fans throughout the world through a quiz containing 300 questions, like “Who refereed the 1994 World Cup Final in the United States ?”, “What date was FIFA created?”, or “Which team has qualified most frequently for the World Cup finals?” This quiz will really “sort out the men from the boys” in the realm of football knowledge! The best players will receive a gift from FRANCE 98. Lastly, you can rewrite history by voting for your favourite players and teams from previous World Cups. And don’t forget that thanks to FRANCE98.COM the next World Cup already belongs to you, in a sense!

A NEW PLAYING FIELD

Footix, the official mascot for FRANCE 98, is, of course, unmistakably present on FRANCE98.COM. It is he who “comperes” The Playing Field. In this section one can find the story of how the lovable rooster came into being. This section also contains a way to enhance the appearance of your computer screen with the colours of the coming FIFA FRANCE 98 World Cup. Cyber travellers can now download FRANCE 98 screensavers. Also on the menu: a video of Footix juggling a ball, a slide show of the best moments of the 1994 World Cup, and a superb animated sequence based on the logo.

SERVING THE MEDIA

In addition to its detailed presentation about the organising of the World Cup, FRANCE98.COM has devoted an entire section to journalists seeking up-to-date information on a daily basis for their readers, television viewers and listeners. “News and Media is a section tailor-made for journalists,” explains Bruno Travade, Head of Press and Communication at the CFO. “There they have all the tools they need at their fingertips, which will make their job that much easier.” The menu contains all the press releases from the start of the FRANCE 98 project, and the main press files on important themes. The monthly newsletter “FRANCE 98 Informations”, which you are reading at this very moment, is also included in the information available to journalists. Appearing on FRANCE98.COM at the same time as it comes out in its printed version, the newsletter provides all the latest CFO news. For those wishing to go back in time, all issues published since the Draw in December 1995 will be gradually made available. Finally, an image bank completes the wide range of information presently available in this section, so that journalists can have access to FRANCE 98’s official photo archives. This includes portraits of the Presidents and Managing Director, as well as pictures of the stadiums, host cities and work sites. These photos are not subject to copyright, and may be downloaded in high definition for immediate use in newspapers and magazines the world over. Match results in the qualifying rounds will soon be on the menu, thanks to links established with the FIFA site, where detailed reports on the matches can be found. In the same way that a game is never over until the final whistle, the FRANCE 98 site will go on developing until the Final itself on 12 July 1998, providing an unprecedented information service in real time throughout the 33 days of the competition. A logical conclusion, really, for the organisation of the 16th World Cup was given to France by FIFA in 1992, the very year in which the World Wide Web burst upon the Internet scene.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Address: www.FRANCE98.com

2 languages: French and English

300 pages (in each language)

1,000 images (in each language)

Web server: Hewlett-Packard HP Domain 9000 / D 350
Data server: Hewlett-Packard HP Domain P 9000 / K460

software:
Sybase SQL

Hosting: During launch: EDS Web Vault at Plano, Texas USA

During 1997: server installed in France (with France telecom) and site maintenanced in the United states (with EDS).

Team:
25 people worked on the site at Plano (Texas, USA), Dallas (Texas, USA), Colorado Springs (Colorado, USA) and Paris (France).

Behind the scenes:

journalists

• Internet consultants
• director of artistic creation
• graphic designers
• network engineers
• database programmers
• marketing consultants
• hardware engineers