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latest update: 19-Jun-2013 16:27:32 |
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Euro 2004 update
Updated: 01-Aug-2003
If you applied for tickets for the UEFA EURO 2004 tournament you should already have heard whether you were successful. Massive interest in the tournament meant that a draw was held to decide which applications for tickets have been successful. As spokesman for UEFA and Euro 2004 commented: “We have been delighted by the interest in tickets, but because of overwhelming demand, both bodies regret that there will be disappointment for some.” Successful applicants should have been notified by post, while unsuccessful applicants are due to be notified via email. The actual match tickets will not be distributed until May 2004, for security reasons.
Although the first batch of tickets has now been allocated, there is still an opportunity for unsuccessful applicants to follow their team. Those national teams that qualify will receive either 20 per cent of the stadium capacity, or 6,000 tickets, whichever is the greater, for allocation to their supporters. These will be available via the individual football associations, once the competition draw has taken place on November 30, 2003. In addition, sales for those matches that were not fully sold out will re-open on August 1, 2003 – these tickets will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
Unite for EURO 2004
With less than a year to go until the final of UEFA EURO 2004, the tournament chairman1, Gilberto Madaíl said that he hoped that the whole nation would become involved in the event. “The outlying areas of the countries that host these kinds of events are sometimes forgotten by organisers, and that is something that our organisation is monitoring closely,” he said. “We have the slogan ‘Vive o 2004’ (live 2004) and we want to widen the tournament to include the whole country.
“To minimise that feeling of regions being left out, we have decided to spread the training centres around the whole country,” he added. “It is not up to football to solve the country’s problems, but we can try to ease them. There are remote villages where the regional press has a fundamental communication role and we want them to help spread the news.”
Madaíl made clear his belief that the Euro 2004 tournament would play a fundamental role in shaping international perception of Portugal. “EURO 2004 is the biggest marketing operation since the 16th century voyages of discovery, except that in those days there was no press,” he said. “The finals will be a source of pride to the whole Portuguese nation.”
Euro 2004 board member Ângelo Brou echoed Madaíl’s words as he briefed reporters on the tournament’s commercial progress. “The tournament creates huge responsibilities for the whole country,” he said. “Expo ’98 was a huge project, but EURO 2004 will be an even bigger one. Fulfilling the demands of the competition will allow Portugal to bid for more international events in the future.”
Brou said that the host cities for the finals would bear a particularly heavy burden. Saying that the tournament was part of Portugal’s policy to boost the tourism industry, he insisted that the cities would be called upon to showcase what the country has to offer in the coming months and during the finals.
Innovative and impressive
UEFA officials have described the Estádio Algarve as arguably the most boldly designed stadium built to host the UEFA EURO2004 championship next summer. The tournament’s southern-most venue will stage two group games as well as a quarter-final and has been created as the centrepiece of the new Parque das Cidades development between the cities of Faro and Loulé. The ground has a planned capacity of 30,000. Most of the seating will be in the main east and west stands bordering the touchline, but key to the stadium’s innovative design are two removable stands at either end of the pitch that can easily be stored away. The plan is to use them as spectator seating in the adjacent athletics track. The decision to have removable stands was taken by the design team HOK sports, led by Austrailian architect Damon Lavelle, who used a similar technique for Sydney’s Olympic Stadium. There a 115,000 capacity for the Games was later reduced to 85,000 when extra seating was removed. HOK also stressed that the sail-like structures supporting the roof in each stand “express the athleticism of the events that they stage.”
“It is a stadium that has been worthy of special attention,“ UEFA EURO 2004 tournament director Antónia Laranja revealed. “It is a very well-conceived project which takes its location into account. It is a stadium whose design is linked with the local setting.”
“This is one of the advantages of the new stadiums,” he continued. “They are built to host football matches, but it has also been necessary to build venues that will be of use to the regions where they have been built. This stadium was not only built to host EURO 2004 and its design clearly reflects that.”
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