EURO 2008 INFO

Austria and Switzerland are waiting to firm up the kick-off of the Euro 2008 football (7-29 June), the preparations are virtually complete in 100 days, Thursday, the start of the greatest sporting competition ever held by the two countries.

51,000 places for the finals
"We are in the green everywhere, there is no area where we feared not being on time," says the president of the Austrian Football Association (ÖFB), Friedrich Stickler, summing up the general feeling. Most of the eight stadiums hosting the competition are ready for several months, including those of Klagenfurt (Austria) and Zurich (Switzerland), which may be under construction or planning had experienced delays. Single stage still work, the old Ernst-Happel Vienna, which will host the finals in particular, has yet to be equipped with a press centre after being modernized and seeing its capacity increased to 51,000 seats.

U2 Viennese
His inauguration, expected on May 10, must coincide with the extension to the line forums U2 subway Viennese only major project still underway. This new infrastructure should avoid the chaos of movement observed during the friendly match Austria-Germany on February 6. Regarding issues of accommodation and transport, both countries are accustomed to mass tourism can rely on the existing infrastructure. Faced with the expected influx of visitors, railways ÖBB Austrian and Swiss SBB has provided 2,000 and 2,500 respectively special trains for fans, who can travel free if they have a ticket stadium.

Austria, which has never hosted the event comparable and released 250 million euros for the development of its stages, and Switzerland, organizer of the World-1954, expect some three million visitors each and several hundred of millions of euros in economic spin-offs. Because the euro will not take place until the stage: the eight host cities (Innsbruck, Klagenfurt, Salzburg and Vienna in Austria, Basel, Bern, Geneva and Zurich in Switzerland), also provide for public showings of the matches on giant screens in huge pedestrian spaces reserved for that purpose. In Vienna, where the famous boulevard of "The Ring" will be stuck on 1.2 km to the image of the "Fan-Meile" Berlin's World-2006, up to 120,000 spectators can follow the meetings outdoors.

Border controls
Corollary to this influx of fans waited, the two countries have put special emphasis on safety. For the 27,000 Austrian police, who will be denied leave during the tournament, and the 31,000 members of the security forces Swiss added reinforcements uniformed participating countries. The policies of the two countries, which will also be deployed significant provision of video surveillance, have already multiplied exercises to cope with the most diverse scenarios, an impromptu state visit to a wave of sackings through a terrorist alert.

Particular attention is given to "profiling", which will be responsible for detecting potential hooligans. This device has been rated "very positively" with an audit conducted in Switzerland by a specialist in the Dutch police, Otto Adang, which ruled preparations security "on track and on time". For purposes of the competition, Austria restore further controls on some of its frontiers, as an exception to the rules of the Schengen area which it is a member.