Hill Dickinson Table Football World Cup kicks off

World Cup fever is gripping Liverpool businesses as the inaugural Hill Dickinson Table Football World Cup launches today.

The tournament, based at the PlaceEXPO exhibition hall at No 4 St Paul's Square in Liverpool, is bringing together 32 teams from some of the region's top businesses, including GVA, CBRE, DLA Piper, Kier and Santander.

Teams have also been entered from Everton and Liverpool Football Clubs, who will play each other on Tuesday 17 June.

The Opening Ceremony commences at midday today and will involve a freestyle footballer, samba music and free ice cream.

Each team is representing a country in the real World Cup, with Hill Dickinson's A team assigned host Brazil.

The whole tournament will be staged at No.4 St Paul's Square throughout the first four weeks of PlaceEXPO, of which Hill Dickinson is headline sponsor.

Following the group format of the tournament in Brazil, there will be eight groups of four teams with four matches a day being played at lunchtime from Thursday 12 June through to Friday 27 June.

The knock out stages will be held the following week, culminating in the quarter finals, semi-finals and final being staged on the evening of Thursday 3 July. The winning team will be presented with a replica of the World Cup trophy.

Fixtures, results and standings will be updated throughout the tournament on the Table Football World Cup blog http://hilldickinsontfwc.blogspot.co.uk.