Major players likely to make bid for Euro 2012

GIVEN their experiences of the last few days the team behind the failed Irish and Scottish campaign for EURO 2008 can be forgiven for not wishing to rush headlong into launching a bid to stage the event in 2012.

They were never favourites to stage the third-largest sporting event in the world behind the World Cup and the Olympic Games.

However, aside from the winners in Vienna and Zurich, losing out to the perceived weaker bids from the Hungarians as well as the Greeks and Turks after scoring so highly in the technical ratings was a bitter pill to swallow.

And the growing realisation that European soccer’s big guns will no doubt be eyeing future Euro tournaments given that the World Cup has finally gone on tour around the continents, will probably mean that the Celts have missed their big opportunity to stage a major footballing event.

Former FAI general secretary and bid team member Brendan Menton returned from the vote at UEFA headquarters in Nyon yesterday to admit:

“We always felt 2008 was a good opportunity for us. Obviously this tournament will happen in eastern Europe (eventually), whether it’s in Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Hungarians or wherever.

“The other thing is, next time round you could have a Spanish bid where the infrastructure and all these things was in place. It won’t put us off but it’s not a decision we’re going to make quickly.

“So we would have to assess the opposition in 18 months and make a realistic assessment of our chances in 2012. That’s when to make the decision.”

Bid marketing director Simon Lyons said: “Because the World Cup is reputed to be moving around each continent you won’t see a World Cup in Europe until 2030 or something. So the large countries will be out gunning for the next European Championships. Once again we’re going to have to say to ourselves, should we go for it? So we’ll assess that in the cold light of day when the dust has settled.”

Menton also looked to positives from the failed bid, adding: “We have developed excellent working relationships with our partners from Scotland.

“There are certain projects we’re going to do jointly, in particular a project that will assist the development of youth football in both countries.

“The joint bid was very good but as far as a bid for 2012 is concerned, it would be wrong to rush into making a decision. We don’t need to do that for probably 18 months minimum and that gives us plenty of time to mount a better campaign.

“One of the strengths of the Swiss/Austrian bid was that they had eight venues, one stadium in each of the big cities. We were using only five host cities.”

Although that factor is unlikely to change in any future bid, Lyons has pinpointed definite room for improvement.

“I think if you look at the lessons learned, we need to understand the politics much better. We need to anticipate the politics much better and we need a full understanding of the geopolitics.