Introduction: Security and Surveillance at Sport Mega Events

In recent times, sport mega events have grown into major global spectacles that possess huge economic, political and social significance. Cities and nations compete intensively for the right to host mega events such as the Olympic Games, the Superbowl in American football, the Champions League final in European football or the ‘World Cup finals’ of various sports. For the organisers, these events are seen as conferring high levels of national and international prestige on host cities, as well as a variety of other benefits such as urban regeneration, increased tourism and new partnerships with global corporations. For example, the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany were estimated to have attracted 5 million international visitors, combined global television audiences of 26 billion and a national economic boost of US$12.5 billion (Giulianotti and Klauser, 2010). One issue which has become central to the planning and implementation of sport mega events is security, particularly since the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Granted, security concerns in sport do go further back, as most obviously demonstrated by the 1972 Munich Olympic attacks, at which 17 people were killed when Palestinian terrorists held Israeli athletes hostage, and also by the concerted attempts by various authorities to prevent spectator violence at major football tournaments since the mid 1970s onwards. Yet, in the post-9/11 environment, rising expenditures on security demonstrate the intensification of the issue of sport and security. For example, while security spending at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics came to US$66 million, the budget for London 2012 stands at a projected US$1.7 billion (The Telegraph, 9 September 2010; Daily Telegraph, 11 December 2007). Such expenditures are realised through the mobilisation of more security personnel, such as the 60 000 additional police officers to be drafted in for London 2012, and the implementation of high-tech security technologies. As security