Germany has been soundly thrashed, Albania defeated and, David Beckham having famously found the Greeks' Achilles heel, England are on their way to the World Cup Finals in Japan and South Korea making Sven Goran Eriksson a candidate for honorary British citizenship.
Already millions of armchair fans are anticipating settling in front of their television sets for a summer of football. But they may have been in for a disappointment!
Until the recent success of a joint BBC/ITV bid to televise the competition in the UK, the highly complex world of the marketing of broadcasting rights for major sporting events looked like it had claimed another victim in the World Cup 2002. Britain’s broadcasters had been unable to agree a deal to televise the games from Japan and South Korea. Negotiations with the rights holders had broken down. The European Court and the Office of Fair Trading had been called in to adjudicate.
