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UEFA Euro 2012

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UEFA Euro 2012
Mistrzostwa Europy w Piłce Nożnej 2012
Чемпіонат Європи з футболу 2012
File:Uefa2012polandukrainelogo.png
UEFA Euro 2012 official candidate logo
Tournament details
Host countriesPoland
Ukraine
DatesJune 9 – July 1
Teams16
Venue(s)8 (in 8 host cities)

The UEFA Euro 2012, commonly referred to as Euro 2012, will be the 14th European Championship for national football teams sanctioned by UEFA. Poland and Ukraine will be the host nations of the final tournament, scheduled for the summer of 2012, following the election of their joint-bid by UEFA's Executive Committee, on April 18, 2007, in Cardiff, Wales. This bid defeated the other shortlisted bids from Italy and Croatia/Hungary, becoming the third successful joint-bid for the European Championship, after those of Belgium/Netherlands, for Euro 2000, and Austria/Switzerland for Euro 2008.

The Polish-Ukrainian hosting is seen as a way of shifting the focus towards regions and nations of central and eastern Europe, whose population demonstrates a strong feeling for football, but are less developed in terms of the quality of the local leagues and football infrastructure, when compared with western Europe. Apart from Chorzów, Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk, the host cities are all popular tourist destinations. However, it is unclear if they have sufficient experience in accommodating large numbers of visitors for extended stays, and the existing transportation infrastructure within and between both countries is inadequate to allow a rapid flow of people between the venues. In order to improve this situation, the bid plans the expansion and modernization of roads and highways (e.g., Poland's southwest–southeast A4 highway [1]). The obligatory improvement of the football infrastructure includes the building of the new Shakhtar Stadium in Donetsk, which fits the 5-star UEFA criteria, and the near-completed 31,000-seat Dnipro Stadium in Dnipropetrovsk.

Emerging concerns about the progress of infrastructure improvements have prompted UEFA president Michel Platini to go on the record on January 30, 2008, warning the organizers of the need to avoid "critical slippages" in their preparations[2].

Euro 2012 match venues.

Venues

Poland

City Stadium Capacity(*) Host Club Host Matches
Chorzów Silesian Stadium 47,246 Poland (Górnik Zabrze, GKS Katowice, Ruch Chorzów, Polonia Bytom only in important matches) reserve
Warsaw National Stadium 55,000 Poland Opening Match, two other Group Matches, Quarter-Final and Semi-Final
Poznań Municipal Stadium 46,000 Lech Poznań 3 Group Matches
Wrocław Stadium in Maślice 44,000 Śląsk Wrocław 3 Group Matches
Gdańsk Baltic Arena 44,000 Lechia Gdańsk 3 Group Matches and Quarter-Final
Kraków Wisła Stadium 35,000 Wisła Kraków reserve

(*) Capacity is stated as expected upon completion of construction or reconstruction (year 2012) [4].

Ukraine

City Stadium Capacity(*) Host Club Host Matches
Kiev NSK Olimpiyskyi 85,000[3] Ukraine, FC Arsenal Kyiv (FC Dynamo Kyiv only in European competitions) 3 Group Matches, Quarter-Final and Final
Donetsk Shakhtar Stadium 50,000 FC Shakhtar Donetsk 3 Group Matches, Quarter-Final and Semi-Final
Kharkiv Metalist Stadium 42,000 FC Metalist Kharkiv, FC Kharkiv reserve(**)
Lviv Ukraina Stadium 32,000 FC Karpaty Lviv 3 Group Matches
Odesa Chornomorets Stadium 34,362 FC Chornomorets Odesa reserve
Dnipropetrovsk Dnipro Stadium 34,000 FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk 3 Group Matches
Infrastructure of Euro 2012 venues.


Participation

Euro 2012 is currently set to feature 16 national teams, as has been the format since 1996. Many European football associations were in favour of expanding the tournament to 24 teams due to the much-increased number of UEFA members in recent years (53 in April 2006 compared to 33 prior to the break up of the USSR[4] and of Yugoslavia). However, on April 17, 2007, UEFA's Executive Committee formally decided against an expansion in 2012.[5] Analysts suspect the decision may be reversed, since it was one of the electoral promises of both Platini and his rival, former UEFA president Lennart Johansson, and more than forty F.A.s backed the proposal.[6]

Qualified Teams

Host selection process

Bid history

File:Uefa2012ukrpolpic2.jpg
UEFA 2012 Youth Art Exhibition in support of a joint Ukraine-Poland bid.

The organization of the event was initially contested for by five bids representing seven countries: Croatia/Hungary (joint bid), Greece, Italy, Poland/Ukraine (joint bid), and Turkey.

On November 8, 2005, UEFA's Executive Committee whittled the candidates down to a short list of three:[7]

On May 31, 2006 all three bids completed the second phase of the process by submitting more detailed dossiers. In September 2006, UEFA conducted site visits to candidate countries. The hosts were chosen on April 18, 2007 in Cardiff, Wales. The results of the voting are:

Voting procedure

The voting would have been made in a maximum of two rounds. For the vote to be valid, there had to be a quorum in the meeting room, i.e. at least eight Committee members, excluding the president and his deputy who did not have the right to vote. In the first round, each member had one vote. As the Poland/Ukraine bid received an absolute majority of 8 votes, it was announced the winner and the second round was not required.

The voting committee was composed of 14 members:

  1. Michel Platini (France) - President
  2. Senes Erzik (Turkey)
  3. Geoffrey Thompson (England)
  4. Angel María Villar Llona (Spain)
  5. Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder (Germany)
  6. Marios N. Lefkaritis (Cyprus)
  7. Franco Carraro (Italy)
  8. Viacheslav Koloskov (Russia)
  9. Gilberto Madaíl (Portugal)
  10. Joseph Mifsud (Malta)
  11. Per Ravn Omdal (Norway)
  12. Mircea Sandu (Romania)
  13. Dr Mathieu Sprengers (Netherlands)
  14. Hryhoriy Surkis (Ukraine)

Misters Surkis and Carraro were not entitled to vote in any of the ballots, as they represent candidate countries. (UEFA official voting rules) This left 12 votes available for the three competing bids.

Other candidates

Italy

Italy had already hosted the European Football Championship finals in 1968 and 1980, and also hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1934 and 1990.

The Italian bid appeared to be the most solid of the three due to Italy's generally excellent transportation infrastructure, the wide availability of lodging for visiting fans, and the Italian football association's past experience in organizing major tournaments. None of the other short-list candidates had ever hosted the finals of a major football tournament independently or as part of a joint bid, with the partial exception of Croatia. Also, the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin demonstrated the Italian ability to host a sporting event comparable to the Euro in magnitude. Italy's current status of World Cup holder was also thought to be a positive factor.

However, the recent scandal in Italy's first division and the football-related violence in Catania, which led to the death of police officer Filippo Raciti and revealed safety deficiencies in many stadia, have damaged the overall standing of Italian football. Yet the Italian government's resolve to assist football authorities in solving the problem – e.g., by introducing anti-hooliganism laws and allocating funds to immediate safety improvement measures in stadia – gave hope that it might partially mitigate the risk to Italy's Euro bid. Another minor risk was potential apathy of domestic fans after repeatedly re-using the same host nation, though 22 years would have elapsed since the last major tournament at home if Italy was selected to host Euro 2012.

The following venues were proposed by the Italian Football Federation:

There were, still four "reserve" venues:

Rumors appeared about two of these cities being added later (bringing the stadia to ten, the same of 2004 edition), being Bologna and Genoa the most probable "nominees".

The cities were basically the same as for Italia 90 - and so were the stadia, with the exceptions of the Neapolitan (San Paolo) and Palermitan (La Favorita) venues, replaced by new facilities, and the Turinese Delle Alpi, under full rebuilding. The remaining sites were to be improved and made safer, in order to reach the fourth star in the UEFA stadia rating, which is required to host a game – target currently reached only by Olimpico and San Siro with their five stars, and San Nicola, with four.

Croatia and Hungary

The following cities were proposed by the Hungarian Football Federation and the Croatian Football Federation:

Hungary was bidding for the third time consecutively after failing to win either the Euro 2004 or the Euro 2008 bid. It teamed up with Croatia after its previous partner, Austria, opted to associate with Switzerland to (successfully) bid to host Euro 2008.

Some elements of a successful bid were already in place, though gaps remained when compared to Italy. The two capital cities Budapest and Zagreb as well as the popular tourist destinations of Rijeka and Split already had decent transportation and lodging infrastructure. The favorable economic conditions of the two countries were likely to keep funds available to improve road, rail, or air networks and make the necessary infrastructure improvements in the other host cities. For instance, Croatia built more than 700 km of new highways and expressways in the last 10 years (including a new highway to the Hungarian border) despite the recent war, and further improvements between all host cities were planned by 2012.

Despite these recent improvements, however, the road and rail networks of the two candidate countries fell short of Italy's. In addition, several factors were hampering the bid. The lack of high-quality accommodations in some areas in Hungary and Croatia and recent outbursts of hooliganism by some Croatian football fans have been a problem, as have the 2006 protests in Hungary and the protest of a group of Hungarian fans during the UEFA delegation's visit to Budapest (claiming that Hungary should focus on improving its own football instead of hosting Euro 2012). Another challenge for the bid was poor attendance in Hungary and Croatia comparing to other bidders, among all nation Hungary had the lowest attendance with approximately 2,354, which is almost 4 times lower than in Ukraine and almost nine times lower than in Italy. [5]

Neither of the two countries had ever hosted similar major tournaments, although Croatia's capital Zagreb did host one semifinal and the third-place match of Euro 1976 when the country was part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

If the Croatian/Hungarian bid had succeeded, Zagreb's Maksimir Stadium would have hosted he opening ceremony and the opening match – and Budapest's Ferenc Puskás Stadium would have been the venue for the final.

References

  1. ^ Poland 'confident' on Euro 2012 chances despite jitters
  2. ^ Platini warns Poland, Ukraine on Euro 2012 delays
  3. ^ After reconstruction Template:Uk icon
  4. ^ UEFA to consider 24-team EURO [1], [2]
  5. ^ UEFA verdicts from Cardiff [3]
  6. ^ Gazzetta dello Sport, April 17th, 2006
  7. ^ Chaplin, Mark (2005-11-08). "Trio in EURO 2012 running". UEFA. Retrieved 2007-04-19. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

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