As The Diary went to press, Sven-Goran Eriksson was still England manager, Wayne Rooney's right foot was still attached to his leg and our brave World Cup battlers had not yet been eliminated on penalties by an obscure sub-Saharan nation with a population half that of Cumbria.

It is a time of stress for employers as well as fans, however, with a string of billion-pound businesses certain to collapse if so much as a single staff member skives off work to watch the footy.

Hence the avalanche of cautionary missives from troubled employment lawyers alerting those poor multinationals how best to deal with the impending calamity. For the uninitiated, The Diary now brings you those World Cup survival tips in full:

. all back-office functions to be outsourced to Scotland, where most people have never even heard of the World Cup;

. outgoing mail destined for Germany to be searched for stowaways;

. compulsory hourly breathalyser tests for all staff (except partners and senior management);

. anyone called Wayne, Theo or Jermaine to be renamed Crispin and sent to Badminton Horse Trials for 're-education';

. fire the lot.