UEFA Euro 2012
Host countries: Poland, Ukraine
Dates: 8 June – 1 July
Teams: 16 (from 1 confederation)
Venues: 8 (in 8 host cities)
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. The final tournament will be hosted by Poland and Ukraine between 8 June and 1 July 2012. This bid was chosen by UEFA's Executive Committee in 2007.
This will be the last European Championship finals tournament to contain 16 nations; 24 will compete from Euro 2016 onward. Qualification was contested by 51 nations between August 2010 and November 2011 to join the two host nations in the tournament.
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The winner of the tournament will qualify for the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup hosted by Brazil.
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Host selection
The joint Poland–Ukraine bid was chosen by a vote of the UEFA Executive Committee on 18 April 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 (2000) and Austria–Switzerland (2008).
Readiness concerns
Hosting city Kharkiv in Ukraine with Euro 2012 logo.
In January 2008, UEFA president Michel Platini went on the record to warn the organisers of the need to avoid "critical slippages" in their preparations, prompting Scotland to reportedly inform UEFA that they would be willing to step in as hosts, which they reiterated again later in the year. However, by June 2008, UEFA stated they were "not discussing any plan B in terms of new countries" hosting.
Ukraine reported several problems which threatened their ability to co-host: delays in the renovation of Kiev’s Olympic Stadium, and difficulties funding infrastructure work after the economic crisis struck. After an inspection in April 2009, Platini re-affirmed that Ukraine would remain co-host but hinted that most matches could go to Poland. The Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated his country would be capable of this task, but was committed to the original 4 + 4 host city plan, as was the Polish FA.
Poland's one major incident occurred in late September 2008, when its government suspended the Polish Football Association (PZPN) over corruption issues and assigned an administrator. UEFA swiftly issued a letter warning that it risked losing the right to co-host, which resulted in the government yielding. Preparation work proceeded more speedily than in Ukraine and, following a visit in April 2009, Platini announced that all was on track and he saw no major problems. The following month, UEFA confirmed the appointment of the Polish cities of Warsaw, Poznań, Wrocław and Gdańsk. At the same meeting, an appeal for delayed decision on the Ukrainian venues was granted to Lviv, Donetsk and Kharkiv in order to meet specific conditions regarding infrastructure, with a warning that only Kiev and the best prepared city of the other candidates would otherwise be used if issues were not resolved by the end of November.
In September 2009 Platini announced that "Ukraine has made sudden progress in their efforts to stage the tournament", and it was soon confirmed that their four cities (Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kiev and Lviv) would host matches. Kiev was also confirmed to host the Final.
An interview Platini gave to the German FA in May 2010, suggesting that Germany and Hungary could even replace Ukraine unless improvements were made, cast new doubt on their readiness. But by August, Platini revisited that and stated "You can consider that the ultimatum no longer exists", and that he was optimistic about preparations in both countries and saw no major obstacles. Late September 2011 he stated "Ukraine is virtually ready for Euro 2012".
Venues
Infrastructure of the host nations: European, Polish and
Ukrainian major routes.
Apart from Donetsk and Kharkiv, the host cities are all popular tourist destinations (the latter having replaced Dnipropetrovsk as a host city in 2009). The bid package requires the expansion and modernisation of roads and transport links.
The obligatory improvement of the football infrastructure includes the building of new stadiums: Six of the eight venues are brand new stadia currently being constructed ready to open in advance of the tournament; the remaining two (in Poznań and Kharkiv) have undergone major renovations to improve them. Three of the stadia will fulfill the criteria of UEFA's highest category stadiums.
In a return to the format used at Euro 1992, Euro 1996 and Euro 2008, each group will be based around two stadia.
Qualification
The draw for the UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying competition took place in Warsaw on 7 February 2010. 51 teams entered to compete for the 14 remaining places in the finals, alongside co-hosts Poland and Ukraine. These teams were divided into nine groups, with the draw using the new UEFA national team coefficient for the first time in order to determine the seedings.
The qualifying process began in August 2010 and will conclude on 15 November 2011. At the conclusion of the qualifying group stage (on 11 October 2011), the nine group winners qualified automatically, with the second placed team with the best ranking also doing so. The remaining eight teams who finished second in their respective groups will now contest two-legged play-offs, with the winner of each tie qualifying for the finals.
Participating teams
The finals will feature sixteen national teams, as has been the format since 1996. Some European football associations were in favour of expanding the tournament to 24 teams, although the number of UEFA members had hardly increased since the last tournament extension in 1996 (53 in April 2006 compared to 48 for Euro 1996). On 17 April 2007, UEFA's Executive Committee formally decided against an expansion for 2012.
Twelve teams have already been confirmed as participants in the final tournament, with four more places to be filled through the forthcoming qualifying play-offs. Those already qualified are:
Denmark
England
France
Germany
Greece
Italy
Netherlands
Poland
(co-hosts)
Russia
Spain
Sweden
Ukraine
(co-hosts)
Final draw
The draw for the final tournament will take place on 2 December 2011 at the Ukraine Palace of Arts in Kiev, Ukraine.
As was the case at the 2004 and 2008 finals, the sixteen finalists will be divided into four seeding pots, ranked by their UEFA coefficient, with each of the four groups having one team from each pot.
Pot 1
- Poland
- Ukraine
- Spain
- TBA - Netherlands or Croatia
Pot 2
- TBA - Croatia or Netherlands
- Germany
- Italy
- England
Pot 3
- TBA
- TBA
- TBA
- TBA
Pot 4
- TBA
- TBA
- TBA
- TBA
Pot 1 will include Poland and Ukraine, as co-hosts, Spain, as defending champions (coincidentally Spain are also the team with the highest coefficient) and Netherlands (provided Croatia don't win both of their play-off matches against Turkey by an aggregate score of 434 or more goals or many more even unlikelier scenarios do not come to pass), the team with the next highest coefficient. The remaining pots can also only be confirmed after the conclusion of the qualifying process, as teams' coefficient rankings will still be affected by results in the forthcoming qualifying play-offs. However, it is almost certain that Germany, Italy and England will be in Pot 2. For example, the most likely scenario in which the lowest ranked team of the three would not make it would be a Croatia win and a 57-goal Portugal triumph over two legs.
Miscellany
Mascots
The mascot names were announced in December 2010 after voting on the UEFA website. Almost 40,000 votes were received, leading to the following result:
- Slavek and Slavko: 56% of votes
- Siemko and Strimko: 29%
- Klemek and Ladko: 15%
Logo and slogan
The official logo for the tournament was unveiled at a special event at Mykhailivska Square, Kiev, on 14 December 2009. It takes its visual identity from Wycinanki, the traditional art of paper cutting practised in Poland and rural areas of Ukraine. The art form symbolises the nature of the rural areas of both countries. As part of the event, landmark buildings in the eight host cities were illuminated with the tournament logo. The competition slogan, "Creating History Together" (Polish: Razem tworzymy przyszłość, Ukrainian: Творимо історію разом / Tvorymo istoriyu razom), was announced along with the logo. The slogan reflects the fact that Poland and Ukraine represent the easternmost host nations in European Championship history.
Ticketing
Tickets were sold directly by UEFA via its website, or are to be distributed by the football associations of the 16 finalists. Applications had to be made during March 2011 for the 1.4 million tickets available for the 31 tournament matches. Over 12 million applications were received, which represented a 17% increase on the 2008 finals, and an all-time record for the UEFA European Championship. Owing to this over-subscription for the matches, lotteries were carried out to allocate tickets.
Prices varied from €30 (for a seat behind the goals at a group match) to €600 (for a seat in the main stand at the final). In addition to individual match tickets, fans could buy packages to see either all matches played by one team, or all matches at one specific venue.
