Johansson denies trying to influence voting for Euro 2008

UEFA president Lennart Johansson has furiously denied making claims which would influence the voting for the European Championships in 2008.

Johansson had reportedly intimated that the Austria-Switzerland bid had the strongest chance of succeeding while the Greece-Turkey and Russia bids had little chance of success.

The Scotland-Ireland bid is believed to be running alongside the Austria-Swiss team as favourites to stage the tournament in six years’ time.

But Johansson has denounced the reported comments as being ‘‘taken out of context’’.

Johansson said in a statement: ‘‘All bids for the hosting of Euro 2008 will be treated equally and fairly and will have the same chance of success when the final decision is made by the UEFA executive committee members on Thursday December 12 in Nyon.

‘‘I am unhappy to see that some of my recent comments to the Press were taken out of context and appear to have been used to try and gain an unfair advantage for certain competing bids by demeaning other bids.

‘‘Actions such as these do not help the bidding process.

“They spoil the climate in the run-up to the decision.’’

Reports had implied that the Moscow theatre hostage drama and crowd trouble in Fenerbahce’s recent match against Panathinaikos would harm the Russian and Greek-Turkish bids, but Blatter was not directly quoted as saying such.

There are seven candidates bidding to host the championships - Austria/Switzerland, Bosnia-Herzegovina/Croatia, Greece/Turkey, Hungary, the Denmark/Finland/Norway/Sweden bid known as ‘Nordic 2008’, Russia and the Gaelic bid.