Ukraine & Poland meet EURO 2012

The 14th European Football Championship will be hosted by Poland and Ukraine. The UEFA Euro 2012, commonly referred to as Euro 2012 will be in June 2012. In the struggle for hosting Euro 2012 Poland and Ukraine beat Italy and Croatia/Hungary.

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. 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.

The Trophy of European Football Championship

The Henri Delaunay Trophy , which is awarded to the winner of the European Football Championship, is named in honor of Hendry Delaunay, the first General Secretary of UEFA , who came up with the idea of a European championship but died five years prior to the first tournament in 1960. His son Pierre Delaunay was the person in charge of making the trophy. Since the first tournament it has been awarded for the winning team to keep for four years, until the next tournament.
For the 2008 tournament, the trophy was slightly remodeled making it larger. The trophy, which is made of sterling silver, now weighs 8 kilograms and is 60 centimeters tall. A small figure juggling a ball on the back of the original was removed, as was the marble plinth. The silver base of the trophy 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.

The 2008 UEFA European Football Championship, «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 UEFA Euro 2000 hosted by Belgium and the Netherlands.
A total of 16 teams will take part in the tournament. Austria and Switzerland automatically qualified as hosts; the remaining 14 teams have been determined through qualifying matches which started in August 2006.The winner of Euro 2008 will represent UEFA at the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup in South Africa.

UEFA Euro – The Competition

Before 1980, only four teams qualified for the final tournament. From 1980 eight teams competed and in 1996 the tournament expanded again to the current number of teams, 16. The competing teams are chosen by a series of qualifying games. In 1960 and 1964 it was through home and away play-offs and from 1968 through a combination of both qualifying groups and play-off games. The host country was selected from the four finalists after they were determined through qualifying.
Since the expansion of the final tournament starting from 1980, the host country, or countries, have been chosen beforehand and qualify automatically.
An automatic place in the finals have never been granted for the defending champions.

Qualifying

The qualifying phase is played in a group format. The composition of the groups is defined through means of a draw of teams from pre-defined seeded bowls. For the EURO 2008, the group qualifying phase consists of seven groups. One of eight teams and the remainder of seven teams in every group. The qualifying phase is done in groups, each effectively a mini league, where the highest ranked team and the runner up. After all the teams have played each other home and away games, progresses to the finals tournament. As with most leagues, the points are awarded as three for a win, one for a draw, and none for a loss. In the eventuality of one or more teams having equal points after all matches have been played, the following criteria are used to distinguish the sides:
1. Higher number of points obtained in the group matches played among the teams in question.
2. Superior goal difference from the group matches played among the teams in question.
3. Higher number of goals scored in the group matches played among the teams in question.
4. Higher number of goals scored away from home in the group matches played among the teams in question.
5. Results of all group matches:

• Superior goal difference
• Higher number of goals scored
• Higher number of goals scored away from home
• Fair play conduct