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Page last updated at 15:03 GMT, Tuesday, 27 May 2008 16:03 UK

Euro 2008 venues

The European Championship will kick-off on 7 June 2008 at Basle's St Jakob Park.

The stadium, which opened in 2001 with a capacity of 33,433, has been boosted to 42,500 and Switzerland v Czech Republic will get the tournament under way.

The final will be held at the Ernst Happel Stadion in Vienna on 29 June.

The ground, which will have a capacity of 50,000, staged the 1964, 1987, 1990 and 1995 European Cup finals.

OTHER VENUES

Klagenfurt's Worthersee Stadion (30,000) - the stadium will be the home to FC Karnten.

Geneva's Stade de Geneve (30,000) - opened in 2003 and is home to Servette FC.

Zurich's Letzigrund Stadion (30,000) - the stadium will be home to FC Zurich.

Berne's Stade de Suisse Wankdorf (32,000) - the original stadium staged the 1954 World Cup final but was demolished in 2001 and completely rebuilt, opening in July 2005. It is now home to BSC Young Boys.

Salzberg's Stadion Salzberg Wals-Seizenheim (30,000) - the stadium opened in 2003 with 18,686 seats but for the finals it will be expanded.

Vienna's Ernst-Happel-Stadion (50,000) - after general renovation work, the stadium now has up to 50,000 covered seats.

Innsbruck's Stadion Tivuli NEU (30,000) - the home to FC Wacker Tirol is being extended from a 15,200-capacity stadium for the tournament.

THE AUSTRIA-SWITZERLAND BID

Back in December 2002, Uefa announced that Austria and Switzerland had won the right to host the European Championships in 2008.

They beat off competition from seven other bidders - including a joint pitch from Scotland and Ireland - for the right to stage the tournament.

Austria had previously tried and failed to host the 2004 finals in a joint bid with Hungary.

But their combination with the Swiss was a big favourite to be picked by Uefa's executive committee - and it was eventually chosen ahead of the Hungarian bid.

Since the verdict it has not been plain sailing, though, with Uefa threatening to take action over the failure of the Swiss to build a new stadium in Zurich.

It will be just the second time in the competition's history that two countries have shared the event, following the 2000 finals in Belgium and the Netherlands.




see also
Euro 2008 finals draw
02 Dec 07 |  Internationals
The road to Euro 2008
23 Nov 07 |  Football


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