Giant soccer ball signed by well-known athletes and World Cup personalities is auctioned for $2,840 in the Internet - proceeds to go toward '6 Villages for 2006' FRANKFURT AM MAIN, Germany, July 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Avaya's charity auction has come to a successful conclusion. The highest bidder for the 4.5 ft wide leather ball, which was signed by soccer celebrities such as Jurgen Klinsmann and various players in the German team as well as other sports stars like Boris Becker and German swimming champion Franziska van Almsick, was Pearl, a mail-order company based in Buggingen, South Germany that sells computer accessories and software. The final bid for the trophy, which is shaped like globe, was 2,232 euros (roughly $2,840). The proceeds of the auction are to go toward SOS Children's Villages' official "6 Villages for 2006" charity campaign staged during the 2006 FIFA World Cup(TM) soccer tournament. "We're delighted that we've not only acquired this impressive football, which is a great reminder of a superb sports event, but we've also been able to help children in need," said Dr. Michael Sichler, General Manager at Pearl. "We've decided to put the football at the entrance of our factory outlet in Auggen near Mullheim so it will always remind our staff and customers about the marvelous atmosphere at the FIFA World Cup in 2006." Football unites the world "The 2006 FIFA World Cup was an event packed with highlights. In Avaya's view, our "6 Villages for 2006" charity auction was an event that will still be remembered long after the day of the finals. That's what we mean at Avaya when we say "Football unites the world, and Avaya connects it," said Andrea Rinnerberger, director of Avaya's FIFA World Cup program. The soccer ball traveled around the whole of Germany from March through July collecting autographs as part of Avaya's European truck tour this year. Aside from a host of soccer stars from the participating international teams, the ball was signed by numerous sports veterans and stars from other disciplines, including Sir Bobby Charlton (the former UK soccer star who led England to a World Cup victory); Rudi Voller, Germany's leading World Cup player in the 1980s; Brazilian Formula 1 racecar star Rubens Barrichello; and many others. New SOS Children's Villages in Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Vietnam and Ukraine The proceeds of the auction will go to the official charity project of the 2006 FIFA World Cup(TM), "6 Villages for 2006." SOS Children's Villages is collecting donations from all over the world in this campaign in order to be able to construct and operate six new SOS Children's Villages located in Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Vietnam, and Ukraine. The Villages will provide about 800 needy children with a new home. Three SOS Kindergartens, an SOS Hermann Gmeiner School, and four SOS Social Centers, all designed to support struggling families, will also be built. These facilities will also be available to children and families from the communities around the SOS Children's Villages. Overall, the "6 Villages for 2006" project will come to benefit 1,000 families and 5,000 children and young people. For more information, go to: http://www.6villagesfor2006.org/. SOS Children's Villages worldwide Hermann Gmeiner founded the first ever SOS Children's Village in Imst in Tyrol, Austria in 1949. He believed that every abandoned child in need should once again have a mother, a family, a house and a village where they can grow up in safety like other children. These four principles led to the establishment of an international organization, which relies primarily on private donations. Currently, children in 132 countries have found a new, safe home in 470 SOS Children's Villages. In addition to the SOS Children's Villages, there are also over 1,300 other SOS facilities such as kindergartens, schools, youth facilities, training and social centers, medical centers and emergency projects, which are also available to the communities around the SOS Children's Villages. "6 Villages for 2006" is the official charity campaign of the 2006 FIFA World Cup(TM) for the construction of six new SOS Children's Villages. These villages will provide a total of 800 children with a new home and therefore with the chance of a better future. About Avaya Avaya, Inc. designs, builds and manages communications networks for more than a million businesses worldwide, including over 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500(R). Focused on businesses large to small, Avaya is a world leader in secure and reliable Internet Protocol telephony systems and communications software applications and services. Driving the convergence of voice and data communications with business applications, and distinguished by comprehensive worldwide services, Avaya helps customers leverage existing and new networks to achieve superior business results. For more information visit the Avaya Web site: http://www.avaya.com/ About the FIFA World Cup 2006(TM) As the Official Convergence Communication provider for the FIFA World Cup 2006(TM), Avaya is providing a champion communications network for the World's largest sporting event. The converged network - that combines voice and data on the same infrastructure - will connect the 12 host stadiums, the international media centers in Munich, Berlin and Dortmund, and the FIFA headquarters in Berlin. Players, coaches, volunteers and fans alike will benefit from the Avaya network, which will be instrumental in player and journalist accreditation, the reporting of results, material tracking, accommodation confirmations, transportation, and ticketing, among other critical functions. With an estimated 45,000 network connections, 30,000 network devices and over 15 terabytes (or 15,000,000,000,000 bytes) of data, it is the largest converged communication network ever built for a sporting event. DATASOURCE: Avaya, Inc. CONTACT: Wolfgang Kehl, Project Manager "6 Villages for 2006", SOS Children's Villages worldwide, +49-89-179-14-266, ; or Iris Roidl of Text 100 Public Relations,+49-89 99 83 70 19, , for Avaya Web site: http://www.avaya.com/ http://www.6villagesfor2006.org/

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