Taking nothing for granted

Austria-Switzerland bid is favorite to win Euro 2008

GENEVA (Reuters) -- The hosts of the 2008 European championship will be announced on Thursday and the joint bid from Austria and Switzerland is favorite to land the second most important soccer tournament in the world.

Among the seven bids, former political foes like Greece and Turkey, and Bosnia and Croatia, have cast aside their historical rivalries to enter joint proposals to host the event.

Scotland and Ireland, and a four-way Nordic candidature are also optimistic about their chances while the solo bids from Russia and Hungary are considered outsiders.

Gerhard Aigner, chief executive of European soccer's governing body UEFA, says all seven entries are of the highest caliber.

"The member associations have become very professional in presenting bids and governments have understood the importance of big sporting events for the image of their country and for their economy, so we have a much higher impact compared to 15 or 20 years ago," he told UEFA's Web site.

"The bidders are under more pressure to win and we will have some disappointed parties. This is a shame -- but this is not going to be the last European championship. The ones who do not win now could win it next time."

Pierre Benoit, spokesman for the Swiss Football Association, is taking nothing for granted.

"You cannot do better than your best and I think we have done that," he told Reuters. "But the problem is you will never know what UEFA are looking for in a bid -- until they have made their decision."

Portugal shock

He well remembers the shock that greeted Portugal's winning bid in 1999 for the 2004 championship after most insiders thought Spain would triumph.

"Then it became clear UEFA wanted to give Portugal a boost, they thought Spain, with the World Cup in 1982 and Olympics in 1992, did not need the impetus for growth 2004 provided," Benoit said.

If UEFA still believes that, then Austria and Switzerland's bid could be disadvantaged as other bidding countries probably need the economic impetus more.

Russia, Hungary and the Bosnia-Croatia bid would all gain enormously by hosting the tournament.

On the other hand, after awarding the competition to Portugal -- whose preparations have been far from straight-forward -- UEFA may prefer the safer option provided by the central European bid.

The 2000 championship was held in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Voting procedure

Because of national affiliations a number of UEFA Executive committee members cannot vote in the initial round of voting including UEFA president Lennart Johansson, who is believed to support the four-way bid from Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland.

That candidature has problems because Sweden hosted the tournament as recently as 1992 and four countries have never hosted a major tournament before.

A mini qualifying tournament would probably have to be staged to whittle the four host countries wanting to play in the competition down to two. There could then be a problem of a nation hosting matches but not being a part of the competition.

The Scotland-Ireland bid has been troubled by Ireland's reluctance to commit to stadium plans and this week Glen Kirton, who ran England's successful Euro 96 tournament, said Scotland would probably have stood a better chance if it had bid alone.

Russia's bid was not helped by the Moscow theatre siege by Chechen militants which killed more than 120 hostages. The Greece-Turkey bid was blighted by fan trouble during a recent UEFA Cup match between Fenerbahce of Turkey and Panathinaikos of Greece.

The bidding committees make their final presentations later on Wednesday.

Voting will take place among executive committee members at UEFA's headquarters in Nyon, near Geneva, after the seven bids are whittled down to two or three on Thursday morning.

The final announcement is expected late on Thursday afternoon.

Hungary: Take a chance on spreading soccer joy

GENEVA (AP) -- Organizers of Hungary's bid to host the 2008 European Championship on Tuesday urged soccer bosses to take a chance on them for the sake of long-neglected fans across Eastern Europe.

"Our bid has a political message. It can give hope to all other former socialist countries, and there are more than 20," said Sandor Berzi, secretary-general of the Hungarian Football Federation.

The Hungarian candidacy, under the slogan "A new start for the new Europe," is one of seven bids being presented in Geneva this week to the executive committee of European soccer body UEFA. The winner will be announced Thursday.

The Hungarian bidders stress that every major soccer tournament in Europe since 1982 has taken place in Western Europe, leaving hundreds of millions of people in central and eastern Europe far from the action.

Western Europe also dominates the UEFA executive committee. The only person from Eastern Europe on the committee is the Russian Viacheslav Koloskov -- and he will not be allowed to vote because his country is among the bidders.

"We would like to develop football, and through football to contribute to the general development of Hungary," said Istvan Huszar, one of the bid directors.

In the center of Eastern Europe, Hungary has borders with seven countries and is close to a number of others. A survey carried out for the organizers said that there are 75 million people who could travel from their homes to watch a Euro 2008 match without having to stay overnight.

Hungary likely will be invited to join the European Union later this week, and the bidders said that the country would likely adopt the euro currency in 2007.

The bid organizers conceded that they cannot currently compete with rich Western countries in terms of facilities, but said they believed they could meet the standard over the next six years.

"Hungary lived 50 years during the communist period and during this time the infrastructure was not developed to the necessary level," Huszar said.

"However, a lot has been done in the last 12 years, and there are plans by the government to finish the motorway network in the directions where we have venues. That will be ready by 2007, independent of the bid."

They also point out that the world soccer body FIFA already has decided to allocate the 2010 World Cup to Africa, though the country has not yet been selected.

"We think that Hungary right now has a better infrastructure than Africa, and it's only two years sooner," said bid director Balazs Makray. "Maybe there is a bit of risk with Hungary, but we are talking about 2008 and there is enough time to prepare and enough time to build everything."

Although Hungary did not qualify for this year's World Cup finals, the country has finished second twice in the past, and has been Olympic champion three times. The Hungarians have played more international matches than any other team in the world.

Hungary bid for the 2004 European Championship with Austria, but that country has looked westward this time and launched a joint bid with Switzerland.

After fruitless negotiations with Croatia, Hungary decided to bid on its own, while the Croatians joined up with Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Also seeking the honor are Russia; Greece and Turkey; Scotland and Ireland; and four Nordic countries -- Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway.

The 2000 championship was hosted jointly by Belgium and the Netherlands. The 2004 event will be in Portugal.

 

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Both the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.