A EURO for Europe

10-12-2012 — /europawire.eu/ — The UEFA EURO 2020 final tournament will be staged in various major cities throughout Europe, following a decision taken by the UEFA Executive Committee at its meeting in Lausanne on Thursday.

The decision to stage a “EURO for Europe”, rather than a tournament in one or two host countries, follows an initial idea revealed by the UEFA President Michel Platini in June 2012. UEFA has consulted its member national associations about the proposal in the intervening period, and has received an extremely positive response, which has prompted Thursday’s innovative move. The decision, which was not supported by Şenes Erzik, means that the UEFA National Teams Competitions Committee will now take responsibility to review the matter further in order to report to a future UEFA Executive Committee meeting.

Among the other decisions taken, the committee decided that the ownership of football players by third parties should be prohibited as a matter of principle. Consequently, world football’s governing body FIFA will be requested to issue relevant worldwide regulations prohibiting third-party ownership of players. UEFA, through its Professional Football Strategy Council (PFSC), would also be ready to implement a regulatory framework to prohibit third-party ownership arrangements in UEFA competitions, should FIFA not take the appropriate steps. In that case, a transitional period of three to four seasons would apply.

UEFA is continuing to be actively involved in the fight against match-fixing and corruption in football. Consequently, the Executive Committee expressed its support for the introduction of sporting fraud as a criminal offence in national legislations throughout Europe.

The committee approved the use of additional assistant referees at next summer’s UEFA European Under-21 Championship final round in Israel. Two additional assistant referees – who stand on each goal line and watch in particular for penalty-area incidents – are already being deployed in this season’s UEFA club competitions, following a decision in July by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) to incorporate additional assistants into the Laws of the Game.

Tbilisi will play host to the 2013 UEFA Futsal Cup finals in April 2013. In addition, the committee approved the name of UEFA’s new youth competition for clubs, which will begin as from the 2013/14 season – the UEFA Youth League. The trophy will be named after UEFA’s honorary president Lennart Johansson.

The committee decided that the 2013/14 UEFA Women’s Under-17 final tournament will be staged in England from 26 November to 8 December 2013, with the qualifying rounds to be played in the summer and autumn of 2013. The final tournament counts as the European qualifying competition for the 2014 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup, which will take place in Costa Rica in March/April 2014, and not in autumn after the UEFA women’s Under-17 final tournament, which normally takes place in June and/or July.

UEFA has prolonged its long-term partner TEAM for the marketing of commercial rights including the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and UEFA Super Cup initially for three additional seasons and, subject to performance, for an additional three-year term thereafter. As part of the new agreement, TEAM has appointed Michael van Praag, a UEFA Executive Committee member and David Taylor, the CEO of UEFA Events SA, to its board.

Astana, Kazakhstan and Vienna, Austria were chosen by the Executive Committee as the respective venues for the 2014 and 2015 UEFA Ordinary Congresses. The XXXVII Ordinary UEFA Congress will take place in London on 24 May 2013.

The first UEFA Executive Committee meeting of 2013 will be held on 25 January at the House of European Football in Nyon, Switzerland.