Thursday, June 19, 2008
UEFA to decide whether to expand European Championship to 20 or 24 teams later this yearInternational Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/06/19/sports/EU-SPT-SOC-Euro-2008-Notebook.phpVIENNA, Austria: UEFA will decide later this year whether to expand the 2016 European Championship by as many as eight countries.
The tournament went from eight to 16 teams at Euro 1996 in England, and UEFA general secretary David Taylor said Thursday a decision will be made by the end of 2008 about increasing that number to 20 or 24 teams for the 2016 edition.
"These tournaments take a long time in the planing, and we would expect before the end of this calendar year to be issuing invitations and bid documents for the 2016 tournament, so we have to in a position when we're issuing bid documents to say what the tournament is going to consist of — is it going to be 16, 20, 24 teams," said Taylor, who is at Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland.
Taylor said UEFA will meet with the national football federations of all 53 European countries eligible to compete before making its decision.
"We'll be making a decision on that in the second half of this year, and we'll be consulting with everybody in the next couple of months," he said.
___
AT THE DOUBLE: Referee Lubos Michel could be in line for a memorable double this season after UEFA put him in charge of Saturday's European Championship quarterfinal match between Russia and the Netherlands.
The Slovakian official has already taken charge of this season's Champions League final and his confirmation for the quarterfinals means he is in contention for the final on June 29. Germany's Herbert Fandel will officiate at Sunday's quarterfinal match between Spain and Italy.
The pair join referees from Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Greece and Spain in staying at the tournament. The teams of officials from Austria, the Netherlands, Norway and England will now leave Euro 2008.
___
COLOR COORDINATED: Swiss railways workers have swapped their orange vests for yellow ones in an attempt to stop sending the wrong signal to Dutch fans.
The decision was taken after fans of the Netherlands followed a rail worker onto the tracks because they thought he was a fellow supporter, Barbara Haeni of the Swiss Federal Railways said Thursday.
Apart from that glitch, the European Championship has been a success for the national rail company, she said. More than 1 million fans have made use of the country's efficient rail network, including the 2,700 special trains put on just for the event. Match ticket holders are entitled to free public travel before and after the game.
About 85 percent of fans used public transport to travel to the games, according to government estimates. This saved about 18,000 tons of carbon dioxide, Swiss rail chief Andreas Meyer said.
One train which won't be traveling on Swiss rails much longer is the special service used by the French team.
The train, with its custom-fitted massage tables and video screens for game analysis, is no longer in use because the team was eliminated from the tournament on Tuesday.
___
NUMBERS GAME: The figures for fan zones, TV ratings and Web site page impressions at Euro 2008 continue to soar.
After 24 games following the completion of the group stage, the fan zones in the eight cities in co-hosts Austria and Switzerland have held more than 2.5 million people, an increase of more than 1,100 percent from Euro 2004 in Portugal at the same stage of the tournament, UEFA said Thursday.
In Vienna, 120,000 people were in the fan zone as Germany beat Austria 1-0 Monday, while a total of 150,000 fans watched from the fan zones in Bern as the Netherlands beat Italy 3-0 on June 9 and then defeated Romania 2-0 Tuesday.
UEFA said that Italy's 2-0 win over France in Zurich on Tuesday had a TV market share of 75 percent in Italy, and the figures in the Netherlands have reached more than 80 percent for games involving the Dutch team.
Meanwhile, the individual page impressions for the official Euro 2008 Web site have hit 792 million.
___
SHOPPING TIME: Women have spent at least €140 million (US$217 million) at the European Championship, according to a study released Thursday that takes into account what females spend on football-related items and such things such as accommodation and transportation.
"This research clearly demonstrates the rising financial significance of females in the football industry," said Professor Simon Chadwick, who conducted the research. "Whether women are committed fans or spending elsewhere around the big games this summer, the fairer sex is making an important economic contribution. The football industry is waking up to the spending power of female supporters and is increasingly adapting their products to suit them."
