Yes. Sports are so important.

Its also worth noting the threats to this World Cup are roughly comparable to those in a modern battlefield - peaceful and violent demonstrators, far right/left wing groups, multi-ethnic /multi-religious group tensions and possible foreign terrorism will make affective security and policing a challenge.

Along with the usual surveillance equipment associated with modern sporting events, some of the 2006 World Cup technology includes:

* Fast Fingerprinting devices allowing German police to transmit identification data to be matched against archives stored in the central database of the German Federal Intelligence Service.

* Facial recognition CCTV in the stadiums will allow cameras to record biometric facial features of suspected hooligans which can be checked in real time against photos stored in the central database.

* RFID chips in more than 3 million tickets will include identification information that will be checked as holders pass through entrance gates. Those with the tickets have had to provide personal data such as name, address, nationality, and passport number (with minor outrage)

* NATO AWACS planes and the German Air Force will patrol the skies above Germany throughout the tournament maintaining an exclusion zone around the stadiums.

* 5,000 private security, 7,000 German army troops and 30,000 German police (luckily unarmed) are supplemented by volunteer groups; most notably the now militant "Die Hasselhoff, Die."

The Germans are being quite coy on the cost of all this, other than it's "less" than the $1 billion spent in the Athens Olympics. They actually seem more impressed with their new ball and the game's motto: "a time to make friends".

Consume. Reproduce. Obey.