The 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, 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). 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.
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)
Messrs 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:
* Bari, San Nicola Stadium * Florence, Artemio Franchi Stadium * Milan, Giuseppe Meazza "San Siro" Stadium (probable semifinal venue), * Naples, a new stadium to be built in the north side of the city (probable semifinal venue) * Palermo, another new ground to be built on the old velodrome site * Rome, Stadio Olimpico (probable final venue) * Turin, the new Juventus home soil, currently under construction over former Delle Alpi's site * Udine, Friuli Stadium
There were, still four "reserve" venues:
* Bologna with its Renato Dall'Ara Stadium, or a new one planned in the nearby Medicina * Cagliari, home of the Renato Sant'Elia Stadium * Genoa and its Luigi Ferraris "Marassi" Stadium or the new Sampdoria ground, planned in Sestri Ponente * Verona, with its Marcantonio Bentegodi Stadium
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:
* Croatia: Zagreb, Split, Rijeka, Osijek * Hungary: Budapest, Székesfehérvár, Győr, Debrecen
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.
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, the final would have been held in Budapest at the Ferenc Puskás Stadium, while the opening ceremony and opening match would have been played at Zagreb's Maksimir Stadium.
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