World Cup fever has descended on the IT Week office. Well, not really… we put up a fixtures list and draped the St George's Cross over one of the pot plants is about all. But take a walk around VNU’s palatial Central London offices (palatial in a Baghdad-palace kinda way) and you'll detect a certain something in the air. Is it the buzz of anticipation at the imminent arrival of the world's greatest sporting event? No, more like an air of desperation as the cream of the editorial staff focus all their efforts on persuading an IT vendor to take them over to Deutschland to see a game: "You're right, I don't normally cover network attached storage, but as you’re a World Cup sponsor I'd love to hear more about your product portfolio. Pleeeeeeease."

Top marks for best bit of sponsorship probably goes to Lenovo for hiring Ronaldinho to plug its products... unless the buck-toothed genius gets his knee-cap rearranged by a Croatian defender in the first game, that is. The Barca superstar has been snapped up for an eye-watering sum to be the firm's worldwide brand ambassador, apparently. Whether that means we can look forward to seeing TV adverts of twinkle-toes playing keepy-up with a Lenovo notebook remains to be seen.

Gaming companies aside, footy players and IT brands always seem to be a bit of an incongruous partnership, probably because technology exudes the impression that you have to be intelligent to operate it. I'm trying but I really can't see Wayne Rooney configuring his firewall settings or David Beckham immersed in a spreadsheet. It would make for a pretty interesting advert though, doomed to appear on one of those “hilarious” round-up shows that go out on a Tuesday night presented by a minor TV celebrity. Alright, I've obviously thought this through far too much.