Will the discovery of dead swans on a German Baltic Sea island lead to the World Cup getting cancelled? Will the €1.3 billion stadium-building program, the sweat, pain and anguish of team qualification, the negotiation of exclusive advertising contracts by multinational corporate sponsors, the complicated sale of millions of tickets and the construction of a giant brothel close to the Berlin Olympic stadium all be in vain?

Actually, no. Not unless the bird flu virus that killed the swans decides to mutate dramatically into one that can be transmitted between humans ahead of the June 9 kick-off in Munich. Of course, soccer would likely then be the last thing on people's minds as they brace for a global pandemic that some experts say could be as deadly as the influenza outbreak that killed 50 million in 1918-19.

But it makes a good story. Germany's top-selling newspaper, populist daily Bild Zeitung, ran a front-page banner headline on Wednesday screaming "Will World Cup Get Scrapped? Experts Raise The Alarm" and even found backbench politicians and a few medical experts to back up the scaremongering. The paper quoted Klaus Stöhr, an expert from the World Health Organization, as saying that if a flu pandemic broke out during the tournament, "someone would need a very large amount of courage not to cancel the World Cup." Berlin B.Z. tabloid similarly asked: "Will World Cup die of bird flu?"

The World Cup organizing committee quickly dismissed the speculation on Wednesday, with a remarkably sanguine sounding spokesman telling SPIEGEL ONLINE: "Bird flu is an animal disease, there's no question of it being a pandemic and we hope it won't turn into one. This isn't the time to start talking about a cancellation."

Selling papers with fear

Wilhelm Priesmeier, a qualified vet who is a member of the German parliament, criticized the media reports. "Attempts are being made to boost circulation with sensational headlines and to capitalize on people's uncertainty," he fumed in a statement.

"Anyone trying to make themselves seem important by spreading absurd horror scenarios is being deeply irresponsible." Bird flu in its current form could only be contracted by humans in very rare cases and wasn't transmittable from human to human according to Priesmeier.

"It's totally frivolous to speculate today that the World Cup may have to be cancelled," he said in a statement. "After all, no one suggested casting doubt on the Olympic Winter Games in Turin after some infected swans were found on Sicily."

German authorities were initially slow to respond to the discovery of dead birds last week on the beaches of the Baltic island of Rügen, largely because of bureaucratic wrangling over who was in charge of removing them. But customary German thoroughness has now kicked in and hundreds of soldiers in protective suits have been gathering up dead swans and wild geese on Rügen, aided by reconnaissance photos taken from Tornado jets.

Chicken flocks across Germany have been ordered indoors and authorities have ordered a cull of poultry held at farms close to the sites were dead wild birds have been found. Cars leaving Rügen, which is joined to the coast by a dam, have to drive through a disinfectant pit to avoid spreading the virus to the mainland, where a small number of dead birds have also been found infected with the feared H5N1 strain of the virus that can be deadly for humans.

Virus continues to spread

It was only a matter of time before the virus, which has killed 92 humans and millions of birds in Asia, Europe and Africa, came to Germany, apparently spread by migrating birds. France has also reported finding H5N1, as well Italy, Austria, Slovenia and Greece, among other countries.