07/13/2005 Matches took place in Hanover as part of the corporate football world championship

Hanover, July 2005. It was a bright sunny day with midsummer temperatures when Continental started the ball rolling. Five teams battled it out on the football pitch of SV Kickers Vahrenheide in Hanover to make it into the end round of the ContiTeamCup - the corporate football world championship - in May next year. The cheerleaders from MTV Groß-Buchholz in Hanover gave a dance and gymnastics display to put everyone in the right mood before the kick-off.

Here you can download the press release as doc-file (112 KB).

Of the five participating teams, the clear winner of this exciting stage in the series was the team from the Stöcken site with a goal ratio of 10:0. This team will now go forward to the second round of the regional championship. The Vergölst team came second with the same number of points and a goal ratio of 7:1.

This is the first time in its corporate history that the international automotive supplier Continental has ever organised this global competition. "As an Official Partner of the 2006 FIFA World Cup GermanyTM we wanted to bring home the relevance of this event within our global corporation. Organising our own championship under the motto "Uniting Goals" seemed the most obvious solution. That way we bring together colleagues from different sites and of different nationalities and promote team spirit - hence the name ContiTeamCup" explained Dr. Heimo Prokop, head of Corporate Communications, the department organising the championship.

Over 100 men's teams from 75 different locations and 26 countries have registered for the series, together with 16 women's teams from ten countries. The first play-offs will determine the local site champions, like the matches just held in Hanover. Further matches will then determine the federal state champions. With around 40% of the overall 81,000 employees located in Germany, the high number of registered teams means that there will be four further regional play-offs to decide the 'German champions'. The countries participating are sub-divided into eight groups, each of which will produce its own champion team. The winners of these eight group matches will then travel to Hanover for the finals. The final result of the ContiTeamCup will be known on May 14th 2006, with both winning teams receiving tickets for one of the 2006 FIFA World CupTM matches.

The Continental Corporation is a leading supplier of brake systems, chassis components, vehicle electronics, tyres and technical elastomers. In 2004 the corporation realised sales of EUR12.6 billion. At present it has a worldwide workforce of more than 81,000.