It's probably already too late, but is your IT department ready for the World Cup?

Have they started to implement their meticulously planned and rehearsed World Cup Digital Apocalypse lock-down plan - or are they in the pub with everyone else?

The first World Cup to be played, post-broadband revolution, is going to be a tricky one for IT.

Some digital football hooligans at the BBC started the trouble, by deciding to stream all the games live from their websites.

Sure, the Eng-er-land games are mostly out of office hours, but your true footie fan will want to watch the other games too so they can regurgitate punditry down the pub in the evening.

And as the tournament progresses, more employees will turn into similar animals, as they discover that football is far more interesting than sales forecasts.

At least the BBC hooligans aren't giving us a bad name abroad. It's only UK users that can receive the live web broadcasts, as Johnny foreigner doesn't have a TV license.

Nor, it seems, do many UK companies. Employees watching World Cup matches on the internet without a TV licence could land directors in court, as the TV Licensing Authority extends its World Cup clampdown to broadband and internet usage.

Blocking the BBC website might be one option. But it won't win you the employer of the year award and inventive users will always find a way to bypass censorship.

Also, mass streaming will be less bandwidth busting than the alernative e-mail storm of 10MB video clip attachments of every goal, which will cause a self inflicted denial of service attack on your e-mail server.

But this is going to happen anyway.

We are only one game into the tournament and World Cup e-mail usage is starting to creep up. It has been estimated (by me) that one in every five e-mails floating around the Net are now World Cup related.

Given that the other four are probably spam, it's clear no one is doing any work over the next month.

Fantasy football sites are making a killing too. Many a working hour, and substantial bandwidth, can be idled away choosing a dream world cup team.

The UK is leading the World Cup digital revolution too. According to 'some-research-firm-with-a-hidden-agenda', we have bought more HD TVs than any other European state in the run up to the World Cup. We also have more broadband users and consume more paid-for digital content than any of our continental neighbours.

We are a nation of downloaders.

But the real digital threat posed by the World Cup is drunken users. I know that 'alcohol in the workplace' is not just an IT issue, but employees in an altered state of mind can do the most damage to their company and their careers if let anywhere near their PCs.

Chris is managing director of Internet consultancy WAA WebXpress. This and other unedited articles can be found at www.webxpress.com. E-mail chris@webxpress.com