Martin Kallen's countdown to UEFA EURO 2008™ has reached 186 days and continues tomorrow in Berne where he will make a progress report to the Swiss government – but that didn't stop Euro 2008 SA's chief operating officer fielding questions from euro2008.com users about the state of play for next summer's championship.
Free transport
Asked by david about free transport during the event, the COO confirmed: "Everyone who has a ticket will have free travel on matchdays and also until noon the following day throughout Austria and Switzerland. The full timetables are available in English via euro2008.com." For wiseking, meanwhile, the question concerned Kallen's priorities for the six months until the tournament starts. The answer: "To prepare the stadiums so they are ready. Good co-operation is being sought with the participating teams and also with the cities and the police. We want to work together to prepare the setting so people can expect emotions in Austria and Switzerland during June 2008."
Football festival
Kallen hopes fans will make the trip to the Alpine nations next summer even if their sides failed to qualify. Answering Boyd, who wanted to know what it meant for the competition not to have a British team involved, the COO stated: "It is a pity as we are missing a big part of Europe's football culture, but at the end sporting criteria decided the teams that would be involved. We still hope fans from the British Isles will support the event and come to Austria and Switzerland."
Sell-out
Supporters are, however, asked to come with tickets if they wish to attend the event as it is unlikely that tickets will go on sale once more. When Andy enquired about the next ticket sales phase, he received the following reply: "There will be no official sales any more. If tickets come back from the associations, they will go to the people already registered on the waiting list."
Co-operation essential
Looking back, the 2004 finals in Portugal drew interest from salvatore who asked about the differences between staging the tournament there compared to Austria and Switzerland. "We cannot compare Portugal to the event next year as Portugal is in the western part of Europe and Switzerland/Austria in the centre," Kallen said. "I can guarantee you that people of these countries will surprise you with their support of the event." The competition organisation has brought different challenges, and responding to pierre, the biggest difficulty identified has been the ability to deliver on promises made some years ago. "Our biggest concern has been to ensure the cities and venues were able to deal with the scope of the event in political terms," Kallen said. "It is important for everyone to have the right co-operation and have us all working in the right direction."
Professionalism
Key to the operation then has been the professionalism of the authorities involved in getting everything ready. The aspect of this which particularly interested Nick was safety and security at such a big tournament. Kallen said: "It's a big challenge and it needs entire attention from everyone in this matter. We are working closely with the two governments who have worked very hard to ensure this situation is treated with the utmost importance and with services to the highest standard." Indeed, joe even asked whether UEFA should reconsider holding major competitions like the EURO in smaller countries (in regard to stadium capacities etc). "UEFA has decided to host events in middle-sized countries such as Austria and Switzerland to promote the game in these nations," the COO countered. "For this reason, it will also happen in the future. I agree if you only look at the demand for tickets, then it should be in stadiums of greater capacity than we have. For security reasons, to have three larger stadiums, this gives you added flexibility in terms of managing the match schedule."
Busy times
The Euro 2008 SA chief also mentioned that Stade de Suisse is his favourite venue as the home ground of his team, BSC Young Boys, and that growing up as a player with FC Frutigen, his heroes were Johan Cruyff and Kevin Keegan. He also praised Lucerne for its efforts in hosting the final-round draw, stating that "people were emotionally taken by the spectacle". For Kallen, Germany will enter the championship as favourites although he hopes Switzerland will take the Henri Delaunay trophy in Vienna on 29 June. That being the case, it would end a busy month for the COO, who in reply to oberrittmeister's question, said: "I would imagine I will attend 15 matches or so. There are 19 days when matches take place in total, but I will get to all the venues, I hope."
©uefa.com
