by Wade Townsend

When the Liebherr 2017 World Championships commences 108 national associations will be represented as over 600 athletes make their way to Düsseldorf.

There will be 66 tables used across the two competition halls and training venue. Is anyone not loving the black surface? 7,000 specially branded balls supplied by Nittaku exclusively for the World Championships, but how many will be pocketed as “souvenirs”? . The athletes will have a great deal of court to cover, with 7,000 square metres of Gerflor flooring being used. And they will be kept in line by 150 umpires; any guesses on the number of red cards given?

Approximately 50,000 spectators are expected to fill the two competition halls during the tournament. Coincidentally, they will be sitting in grandstand constructed out of just over 50,000 individual parts.

The 45 chefs will have a lot of hungry mouths to feed. They will be cooking up 50 tons of food.  38,000 litres of drinks will make sure nobody goes thirsty.

The local area of Düsseldorf will benefit from the massive influx of people coming in to the city, with the hotels getting a boost of 15,000 overnight stays.

There is going to be many people to thank for keeping the event running, with 350 volunteers donating their time to make sure the tournament goes off without a hitch.

And the cost of putting an event like this together? 7 million euros.