UEFA Euro 2008

UEFA Euro 2008
Fußball-Europameisterschaft 2008
	File:UEFA EURO 2008 New Logo.svg UEFA Euro 2008 official logo
Tournament details
Host countries	Austria; Switzerland
Dates	7 June – 29 June
Teams	16
Venue(s)	8 (in 8 host cities)

Template:Future-sport

The 2008 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2008, will take place in Austria and Switzerland, from 7 June to 29 June 2008. It is the second successful joint bid in the competition's history, following the UEFA Euro 2000 hosted by Belgium and the Netherlands. The 2012 competition in Poland and Ukraine is scheduled to become the third jointly-hosted tournament.

A total of 16 teams will participate in the tournament. Austria and Switzerland will automatically qualify as hosts; The remaining 14 teams have been determined through qualifying matches which started in August 2006. Austria and Poland will be making their first appearance in the tournament. The winner of Euro 2008 will represent the UEFA at the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup.

Bid process

The two countries jointly bid to host the games, and faced major competition from Greece/Turkey, Scotland/Ireland, Russia, Hungary, Croatia/Bosnia-Herzegovina and a 4-way Nordic bid from Norway/Sweden/Denmark/Finland. Austria had already bid with another country before, which was Hungary for Euro 2004. They had eventually lost to Portugal.

Austria/Switzerland, Greece/Turkey, and Hungary were recommended before the final vote. Greece and Turkey were rejected and let Hungary and Austria/Switzerland battle for the win.

Venues

Switzerland will play all of its group-stage matches at Basel, and Austria will play all of its group-stage matches at Vienna.

In 2004, the Zürich venue became a problem for the organisers. Originally, the Hardturm stadium was to be renovated and used as the city's venue, but legal challenges delayed the plan to a point that would not have allowed the ground to be used in 2008. This created a problem, as the agreement between UEFA and the organizers stipulated that four venues would be used in each country. The problem was solved when the organizers proposed renovating Letzigrund instead; UEFA approved the revised plan in January 2005. The Letzigrund stadium hosted its first football match on 23 September 2007.^[1]

Switzerland

City	Stadium	Capacity	Host Club	Matches
Basel	St. Jakob-Park	42,500	FC Basel	Switzerland v Czech Republic, Switzerland v Turkey, Switzerland v Portugal, two quarter-finals, semi-final
Berne	Stade de Suisse Wankdorf	32,000	BSC Young Boys	Netherlands v Italy, Netherlands v France, Netherlands v Romania
Geneva	Stade de Genève	32,000	Servette FC	Portugal v Turkey, Czech Republic v Portugal, Turkey v Czech Republic
Zürich	Letzigrund Stadion	30,000	FC Zürich	Romania v France, Italy v Romania, France v Italy

Austria

City	Stadium	Capacity	Host Club	Matches
Vienna	Ernst Happel Stadion	53,000	Austria (FK Austria Wien and SK Rapid Wien only in European competitions)	Austria v Croatia, Austria v Poland, Austria v Germany, two quarter-finals, semi-final and final
Klagenfurt	Wörthersee Stadion	32,000	SK Austria Kärnten	Germany v Poland, Croatia v Germany, Poland v Croatia
Salzburg	Stadion Wals-Siezenheim	31,000	FC Red Bull Salzburg	Greece v Sweden, Greece v Russia, Greece v Spain
Innsbruck	Tivoli-Neu Stadion	30,000	FC Wacker Innsbruck	Spain v Russia, Sweden v Spain, Russia v Sweden

New trophy

File:New Henri Delaunay Trophy.jpg

The new trophy for the UEFA Euro 2008 tournament

A new trophy will be awarded to the winners of the Euro 2008 tournament.

The new version of the Henri Delaunay Trophy, created by Asprey London,^[2] is almost an exact replica of the original designed by Arthus-Bertrand. A small figure juggling a ball on the back of the original has been removed, as has the marble plinth. The silver base of the trophy also had to be enlarged to make it stable. The names of the winning countries that had appeared on the plinth have now been engraved on the back of the trophy, which is made of sterling silver, weighs 8 kilograms and is 60 centimetres tall.

Qualifying

The draw for the qualifying round took place in Montreux, Switzerland on 27 January 2006 at 12:00 CET.

The qualifying process commenced a month after the 2006 World Cup. Austria and Switzerland automatically qualified for the tournament finals as host nations.

The qualifying format was changed compared to previous tournaments. The winners and runners-up from seven groups automatically qualified for the Championship, with the hosts filling the other two slots in the 16-team tournament. The change means there were no play-offs between teams finishing in second place in the groups - they qualified directly for the finals. Teams that finished in third place didn't have any further opportunity to qualify. Six of the qualifying groups contained seven teams, and the other, Group A, contained eight.

Qualified teams

Counter	Qualified as	Date qualification was secured	Previous appearances in tournament¹
Austria	00Co-hosts	0012 December 2002	01 (debut appearance)
Switzerland	01Co-hosts	0112 December 2002	21 (1996, 2004)
Poland	02Group A winner	0917 November 2007	00 (debut appearance)
Portugal	03Group A runner-up	1421 November 2007	4 (1984, 1996, 2000, 2004)
Italy	04Group B winner	0617 November 2007	60 (1968, 1980, 1988, 1996, 2000, 2004)
France	05Group B runner-up	0717 November 2007	61 (1960, 1984, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004)
Greece	06Group C winner	0317 October 2007	23 (1980, 2004)
Turkey	07Group C runner-up	1221 November 2007	22 (1996, 2000)
Czech Republic	08Group D winner	0517 October 2007	62 (1960², 1976², 1980², 1996, 2000, 2004)
Germany	09Group D runner-up	0213 October 2007	9 (1972³, 1976³, 1980³, 1984³, 1988³, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004)
Croatia	10Group E winner	0817 November 2007	20 (1996, 2004)
Russia	11Group E runner-up	1521 November 2007	8 (1960⁴, 1964⁴, 1968⁴, 1972⁴, 1988⁴, 1992⁵, 1996, 2004)
Spain	12Group F winner	1117 November 2007	71 (1964, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1996, 2000, 2004)
Sweden	13Group F runner-up	1321 November 2007	30 (1992, 2000, 2004)
Romania	14Group G winner	0417 October 2007	31 (1984, 1996, 2000)
Netherlands	15Group G runner-up	1017 November 2007	70 (1976, 1980, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004)

¹ Bold indicates champion for that year

² as Czechoslovakia

³ as West Germany

⁴ as Soviet Union

⁵ as Commonwealth of Independent States

Spain controversy

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has threatened Spain with expulsion from international football if the Spanish government interferes in the election process of the Spanish Football Federation.^[3] Should Spain be suspended for the European Championship, Northern Ireland, as the next highest team in Spain's qualifying group, or England, as the highest non-qualifying European team in the FIFA World Rankings, would take their place in Group D.

Seeding

The draw for the final tournament took place on 2 December 2007, beginning at 12:00 CET. The draw, which was held at Culture and Convention Centre in Lucerne, was conducted by the following people.^[4]

Gianni Infantino, hosting the draw.
Peter Schmeichel, conducting Pot 1 draw.
Jürgen Klinsmann, conducting Pot 2 draw.
Didier Deschamps, conducting Pot 3 draw.
Theodoros Zagorakis, conducting Pot 4 draw.
Bernard Dietz, conducting Group A draw.
Anton Ondruš, conducting Group B draw.
Franz Beckenbauer, conducting Group C draw.
Dino Zoff, conducting Group D draw.

In a return to the format used at Euro 92 and Euro 96 the games in each group will be held at just two stadia, with the seeded team remaining in the same city for all three matches. As was the case at the 2000 and 2004 finals, the finalists were divided into four seeding pots, based on average points per game in the qualifying phases of the 2006 FIFA World Cup and Euro 2008, with each group having one team from each pot. Switzerland and Austria, as co-hosts, and Greece, as defending champions, were seeded first automatically.^[5]^[6] The Netherlands were seeded based on their UEFA coefficient in the Euro 2008 finalists ranking.

Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4
Switzerland (assigned to A1) Austria (assigned to B1) Greece Netherlands	Croatia Italy Czech Republic Sweden	Romania Germany Portugal Spain	Poland France Turkey Russia

Match officials

Twelve referees and twenty four assistants were selected for the tournament:^[7]

Country	Referee	Assistants
Austria	Konrad Plautz	Egon Bereuter	Markus Mayr
Belgium	Frank de Bleeckere	Peter Hermans	Alex Verstraeten
England	Howard Webb	Darren Cann	Mike Mullarkey
Germany	Herbert Fandel	Carsten Kadach	Volker Wezel
Greece	Kyros Vassaras	Dimitiris Bozartzidis	Dimitiris Saraidaris
Italy	Roberto Rosetti	Alessandro Griselli	Paolo Calcagno
Netherlands	Pieter Vink	Adriaan Inia	Hans Ten Hoove
Norway	Tom Henning Øvrebø	Geir Age Holen	Erik Ræstad
Slovakia	Ľuboš Micheľ	Roman Slysko	Martin Balko
Spain	Manuel Mejuto González	Juan Carlos Yuste Jiménez	Jesús Calvo Guadamuro
Sweden	Peter Fröjdfeldt	Stefan Wittberg	Henrik Andren
Switzerland	Massimo Busacca	Matthias Arnet	Stephane Cuhat

There will be a further eight referees who will act as fourth officials:^[8]

Country	Fourth officials
Croatia	Ivan Bebek
France	Stephane Lannoy
Hungary	Viktor Kassai
Iceland	Kristinn Jakobsson
Poland	Grzegorz Gilewski
Portugal	Olegário Benquerença
Scotland	Craig Thomson
Slovenia	Damir Skomina

Results

Group stage

All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+2)

Group A

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Switzerland	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Czech Republic	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Portugal	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Turkey	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

2008-06-07