Scorpions guitarist Matthias Jabs has confirmed the band have given up on their plan to split – although they probably won’t keep going the way they have in the past.

He says they’ve been invited to play at the opening ceremony of football’s 2014 World Cup competition in Brazil.

And he adds their next studio project is likely to include completed versions of songs they didn’t finish in the 1980s and 1990s.

The German outfit announced their intention to break up after one last work tour in 2009. But as more and more dates were added they admitted they were reconsidering the decision.

Now Jabs says that, like Judas Priest, they’re planning to keep going as a band, but won’t be touring the world any more.

He tells AZCentral.com: “The Scorpions will not break up. We’re giving up the constant touring – into the studio, out of the studio, back on the road.

“There’s a routine of making an album and touring the world for two and a half years. We said, ‘Can we go in the studio in 2013, Klaus will be 65, and then do another world tour?’ It might get shaky.

“We have a project which we will probably release next year. We have so much film material. We will work on something like an anthology, some kind of box set.”

Earlier this year the Scorpions recorded some new tracks for the project. Jabs says the work consisted of “resurrecting unfinished songs from what some people say was our best time – leftovers from Blackout, Love at First Sting, Crazy World and Savage Amusement.

“There’s so much strong material. The vibe is great because it’s from the time when we were starting out.

“Back then, when I found a new riff I would get excited. It’s slightly different today because I know it all, I’ve heard it all. It’s much harder to get excited about the simplest or sometimes half-genius riff. But there was a definite spark in those old recordings. The idea is to redo them with today’s technology and take it further.”

While the band have nothing scheduled beyond tour’s end on December 15 in Germany, Jabs says:

“Nobody has said we’ll never hit the stage again. We were approached to play for the opening of the World Cup in 2014. That is not confirmed – but those opportunities, we would not let slip away.”