UEFA EURO 2008
Information

UEFA EURO 2008 is the world’s third largest sports event, after the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Summer Games. In terms of TV viewing figures, the European Championship final round is bettered only by the World Cup. A cumulative total of 7.9 billion TV viewers watched the 31 matches in Portugal, while 1.1 million people saw the games in the stadiums.

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The UEFA European Football Championship final round will be held in Austria and Switzerland from 7 to 29 June 2008. Featuring Europe’s best 16 teams, the tournament will last 23 days and comprise 31 matches (16 in Austria, 15 in Switzerland). Around 1,500 people will be employed at each match, looking after the players, safety and organisation in the stadium. Just over 1 million match tickets will be sold (from spring 2007).

UEFA EURO 2008™, as the tournament is officially known, is only the second final round (after Belgium/Netherlands in 2000) to be jointly hosted by two neighbouring countries. The host countries both qualify automatically. A further 50 nations will compete for the 14 remaining places in seven qualifying groups, with matches to be played between 16 August 2006 and 21 November 2007. A total of 308 qualifying matches will be played. The top two teams in each group will qualify for the finals. The draw for the final tournament will be staged in Lucerne (Switzerland) on 2 December 2007.

Euro 2008 Tournament structure
308 matches, i.e. 27,720 minutes of football, plus stoppage time, are needed in order to establish who the 16 final round participants will be. Matches will be played in seven groups (six with seven teams and one with eight). The top two teams in each group will qualify for the final tournament, where a further 2,790 minutes of football will be played (excluding stoppage time and extra time). Each of the 16 teams will play three group matches, with the top two in each of the four groups contesting the quarter-finals. From there, the knock-out system continues and, if any match ends as a draw after normal time, two 15-minute periods of extra time will be played. If there is still no winner, the match will be decided on penalties.

Euro 2008 Countdown
The qualifying matches will be played between 16 August 2006 and 21 November 2007. The draw for the final round will be staged in Lucerne (Switzerland) on 2 December 2007 (four groups with four teams in each, Switzerland will be in Group A and Austria in Group B). Around 100 days before the tournament, in early March 2008, the customary workshop for all the participating teams will be held in Austria and a publicity tour featuring the official mascot and the Henri Delaunay trophy will be launched. In April, the twelve referees will gather in Switzerland for a final training session. The eight stadiums will then be officially handed over to UEFA in early May. The opening match will kick off in Basle at exactly 6 p.m. on 7 June 2008.

Fixture list for the UEFA EURO 2008 qualifying competition
The qualifying competition consists of seven groups (six groups of seven teams and one group of eight). Each group winner and runner-up will go through to the final round of UEFA EURO 2008™. The full fixture list for all seven qualifying groups is as follows.