Euro 2008 is already unique: it’s the first big football tournament in 20 years that will start free of media hysteria over hooligans. Traditionally, before every tournament TV programmes reveal how “hooligan generals” armed with dastardly modern devices such as mobile phones and even the internet are planning “pitched battles” between rival “fan armies”.

Not this time. Big-time hooliganism now appears dead and England, its biggest exporter, didn’t qualify for Euro 2008. Martin Kallen, the tournament’s chief operating officer, told me: “We haven’t had many incidents since 1992. There was a small one in Belgium in 2000, with England fans in Charleroi, but it was less than was mentioned.” But this year both Kallen’s tournament and Beijing’s Olympics are preceded by a more serious worry: terrorism.