Soccer: Girls, porn and alcohol swept away for Saudi players

The pictures of naked women are being removed from the hotel's health spa, the hardcore porn channels have been switched off and all the alcohol will be removed from the mini bars before Saudi Arabia arrive.

Germany is rolling out the red carpets for the 31 foreign teams and a million overseas visitors heading its way for the World Cup, but the small resort town of Bad Nauheim north of Frankfurt is busy taking away temptations for its Muslim guests.

Few places in the world are as liberal as Germany when it comes to public nudity and access to alcohol and where even fastfood restaurants sell beer with burgers and teenagers can buy drinks before they can drive.

Prostitution is legal in Germany and the Government is not too proud to collect tax on it.

Yet the luxurious Hotel Dolce Bad Nauheim is doing all it can to shield the Saudi Arabia team from nasty Western ways when they take up 59 of its 159 rooms on May 27 for the finals. The Saudis play Spain, Ukraine and Tunisia in the opening group stage.

"We do have a photo exhibition in the pool area which shows a lot of skin and it goes without saying that it will be removed by then," said Michel Prokop, the hotel's general manager.

"There are 20 tasteful portrait photos, but out of courtesy there will be no skin and no breasts."

There are also five art nouveau paintings hanging in a theatre in the park that belongs to the hotel. The paintings by Wilhelm Kleukens feature naked boys wearing wings and will come down.

"We're following some basic 'do's and don'ts'. The whole staff is taking cross-cultural training sessions to make them aware of the differences of Germany and Saudi Arabia."

Prokop, who lived in Egypt for two years, said all 123 hotel staff members had been taking eight-hour courses in sensitivity training and on top of that are learning some basic Arabic phrases such as "hello" and "welcome".

- REUTERS