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How did Italy miss out on hosting Euro 2012?

Euro 2012 goes to Poland/Ukraine

Sean O'Conor

On the 18th of April in Cardiff, Poland and Ukraine were unveiled as the surprise hosts for the 2012 UEFA European Championship, defeating the favourites Italy by 8 votes to 4, as well as the joint bid from Croatia and Hungary, which polled no votes from European football's ruling council.

For so long before that day, Italy was considered a shoe-in for the event, and the hosting competition a fait accompli as soon as it had begun. The Italian delegation, including World Cup-winning coach Marcello Lippi, arrived in Wales believing they would garner nine out of the twelve votes on offer. So what happened?

Manchester City striker Bernardo Corradi believes that recent bad publicity was what lost Italy the right to host Euro 2012.

The much-travelled forward, whose CV includes Inter, Lazio, Parma and Valencia, as well as Italy's Euro 2004 squad, said his nation lost the battle to the Poles and the Ukrainians after an annus horribilis for il calcio, in stark contrast to the stunning World Cup triumph in Germany last summer.

"I think those disasters - what happened in Catania and the violence in the stadia, influenced the decision," Corradi told Soccerphile. They didn't transmit a good image of Italy. Then there was the Calciopoli and other problems."

Shortly before the finals, the largest corruption scandal uncovered in Italian football for a quarter of a century exposed a tangled web of intrigue where big clubs wielded an unhealthy influence over referees and the national football association, the FIGC, by arranging particular officials for certain games and checking they performed to their satisfaction.

'Calciopoli' ended with the FIGC leadership resigning and a swathe of punishments for five clubs ranging from points deductions to stripping of titles and in the case of Juventus, relegation to Serie B.

The worldwide stereotype of Italy as a corrupt and dishonest country was depressingly reinforced by Calciopoli, but Italian football also has a serious problem with hooliganism, which reared its ugly head again in February 2007 when a policeman was killed in Catania in riots between fans of Palermo and Catania in the Sicilian derby.

Only days before the Cardiff decision, carabinieri swung their batons randomly and brutally at Manchester United fans in front of the TV cameras in the Olympic Stadium in Rome.

The scenes of unrestrained police clubbing traveling fans while ignoring the local missile-throwers who instigated the initial panic in the away sectors, was identical to the experience of England fans at a 1997 World Cup qualifier at the same venue.

That nothing had been learned in a decade of policing football in Italy, while England's stadia remain fenceless and trouble-free, was fuel to critics who fingered the peninsula as an unfit host for foreign teams and their traveling fans.

The cathedral-like arenas of Italia '90 are now a fading memory. England and Germany's stadia have overtaken Italy's in quality since then and eight of those used in 1990 were due for rebuilding or replacement for Euro 2012. The plan to rebuild the much maligned Stadio delle Alpi in Turin was dependent on the bid, for instance, while Bari's Stadio San Nicola, brand new and widely acclaimed at Italia '90, is now in need of reconstruction.

The decision to snub Italy was taken by the 12 members of UEFA's executive committee, five of whom switched allegiances in the run up to the vote. UEFA President and former Juventus star Michel Platini voted for the Italians and looked stony-faced when revealing the Slavic nations had triumphed instead, provoking rumors of revenge enacted by supporters of the previous incumbent whom Platini unseated last July – Lennart Johansson.

Italy's best-selling daily La Gazzetta dello Sport postulated the volte-face by five delegates might have been thanks to a bizarre ruse by FIFA President Sepp Blatter designed to deflect criticism from him for crow-barring South Africa in as 2010 World Cup hosts!

Italian fingers were also pointed in the direction of the Rome government, who sent sports minister Giovanna Melandri to Cardiff as their nation's representative, while Poland and Ukraine both sent their heads of state.

Whatever machinations went on in the corridors of UEFA politics to move the tournament from Italy to Eastern Europe, a fact that scandalously went unmentioned by the British press, was that the Football Association's Geoff Thompson was one of the four who voted for the Italians, so soon after Manchester United fans had been so disgracefully treated in Rome, as had Middlesbrough fans the year before.

The decision stamps 'failure' in thick letters on the forehead of Italian football. Former Italy and Milan coach Arrigo Sacchi described it as relegating the nation to Serie B. Now more than ever it is time for il calcio to wake up, grab a broom and make a clean sweep of its traditions and operating practices.

"It was the right moment to try to leave all that behind," agreed Corradi. "So it is a real shame. But I don't know how ready Poland is to host a European Championship."

Indeed, the irony is that Italy's bid was still far superior to the winners': The Euro 2012 host is two countries with different languages and currencies, smaller or unbuilt stadia and far less developed transport infrastructure and hotel provision than Italy.

Having been beaten this time after starting out as clear favorites, Italy should have no excuse if, as expected, it bids for Euro 2016. But this was a crushing and unexpected defeat.

"There is still definitely a lot of enthusiasm at the moment back home because we realize in Italy what a wonderful thing we have just achieved in winning the World Cup," said Corradi. "That was an amazing thing, and we could have added more shine to it by hosting the European Championship, so this was a pity, a real pity."

Sean O'Conor

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