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World Cup Security and the Policing of Urban Teacup Storms

Volker Eick, Jens Sambale and Eric Töpfer

From June 9 to July 9, 2006 Germany is hosting the 18th FIFA World Cup. 32 national football teams are meeting for 64 matches at venues in twelve major cities. Officials expect 3.2 million fans and guests to visit the World Cup and an additional several billion viewers to watch them on television around the planet.

The global sports and media mega event is also a mega security show. Essential part of the event is the largest display of domestic security strength in Germany since 1945: More than 260,000 personnel drawn from the state police forces (220,000), the federal police (30,000), the secret services (an unknown number), private security companies (12,000) and the military (7,000) are guarding the World Cup. In addition, 323 foreign police officers vested with executive powers support the policing of train stations, air- and seaports and fan groups. The NATO assists with the airborne surveillance systems AWACS to control air space over host cities. On the ground Germany is suspending the Schengen Agreement and reinstating border checks during the World Cup to regulate the international flow of visitors. Tournament venues and their vicinity as well as "public viewing" locations in downtown areas are converted into high-security zones with access limited to registered persons and pacified crowds only. The overall effort is supported and mediated by sophisticated surveillance, information and communication technology: RFID chips in the World Cup tickets, mobile finger print scanners, extensive networks of CCTV surveillance, DNA samples preventively taken from alleged hooligans – huge amounts of personal data from ticket holders, staff, football supporters and the curious public are collected, processed and shared by the FIFA, the police and the secret services. (Busch 2006; Tagesschau v. 6.6.2006)

The massive demonstration of strength is being justified by the incalculable risk of a terrorist assault, the potential of violent excesses by hooligans and the diffuse menace of organized crime. (Bundesministerium des Innern 2005) In the climate of permanent emergency after September 11 no means seem disproportionate to protect the Wold Cup given the memory of Munich 1972, Brussels 1985, Atlanta 1996 or France 1998. However, there is more about the security architecture at the World Cup than terrorism and the fear of brutal and shocking violence.

Official discourses declare the World Cup as a "unique opportunity to present Germany as a hospitable, cosmopolitan, and modern country" and increase "Germany´s attractiveness as a place for business".  Official and corporate Germany market themselves as "can-do country" and "Land of Ideas". The federal government is expecting an increase of the GDP by "nearly 8 billion euros between 2003 and 2010" due to the World Cup. Billions of euro were spent for the refurbishing of city centers, the completion or modernization of major train stations and the upgrading of transport and communication infrastructures in preparation for the four-week showcase. Tourism industry is hoping for five million additional overnight stays and increased revenue of about three billion euros. (Bundesministerium des Innern 2004) Store closing-times are relaxed against the resistance of service trade unions and the national retail sector is hoping for significant extra profits. Thus, the FIFA World Cup represents the culminating point of the "festivalization" of German politics. (Häußermann & Siebel 1993) In quest for the attention of global capital an economically stagnating nation is heavily investing in building an attractive environment for corporate business and the tourism industry.

Image creation and polishing is a multi-level exercise. At the urban level World Cup security is integrated into a broader agenda of post-Fordist space control which aims to sort out disturbances to the accumulation of capital in centers of consumption and entertainment. In this context visible poverty, petty crime and drug users have become targets of increasing surveillance and repression since the 1990s. (Davis 1990; Christopherson 1994; Simon 2001) Moreover, political dissent – always under scrutiny by the wielders of power – and its quest for spaces of protest are pushed into competition with business interests. Where entrepreneurial agendas dominate urban politics street protest is increasingly denied the "right to the city". (Wekerle & Johnson 2005; Marcuse 2005)

The traveling circus of mega sports events, security industry salesmen and the "pop-up armies" of temporary security organizations is already approaching new cities and nations such as Bejing (Summer Olympics 2008), Switzerland and Austria (UEFA Euro 2008), South Africa (FIFA World Cup 2010), Vancouver (Winter Olympics 2010) or London (Summer Olympics 2012). As in Germany the global security community and the surveillance-industrial complex – nurtured by world-wide panic – will demonstrate their strength. What is left behind are manipulated legal containers of executive power, an exceptional experience in comprehensive training for "national security", enduring fragments of temporary surveillance networks, the normalization of permanent emergency and the privatization and militarization of urban space. (Warren 2002; Chossudovsky 2006)

The Winter Olympics 2002 in Salt Lake City set the benchmark for the future: Designated as a "National Security Special Event" the US Secret Service took the superordinate role over the games. Olympic security was planned and implemented as an integrated theater-wide approach, centralized command and control and vertical responsibilities were established within a multi-agency-network of public and private partners, technology played a prominent role – in particular spawns of the "Revolution in Military Affairs" such as the C4I-system [Command, Control, Communication, Computers and Intelligence] delivered by the company SAIC which was also adapted to the Summer Olympics 2004 in Athens – and security personnel were put in a state of permanent emergency fuelled by the menace of an incalculable and invisible enemy despite the almost exclusively mundane and trivial issues that characterized the reality of the games. (Boeing 2004; Decker et al. 2005)

Studying the security architecture and strategies tested and implemented at the World Cup is more than focusing on an individual event. It is a looking into a prism which bundles and locally mediates global trends in contemporary policing and criminal policies. Thus, we have chosen the context of the World Cup to outline and discuss these trends in an international and comparative perspective.

References

• Boeing, Niels (2004): "Big Brother in Olympia", in: Die Zeit, 8.7.2004.
• Bundesministerium des Innern (2004): World Cup 2006. An opportunity for Germany, 2.6.2004.  Download: 12.6.2006.
• Bundesministerium des Innern (2005): Nationales Sicherheitskonzept FIFA – WM 2006: Zusammenfassung. Sonderkonferenz der Innenminister und –senatoren des Bundes und der Länder (IMK), Stuttgart, 25.5.2005, Download: 2.6.2005.
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