Euro 2008 rejection ‘a lost chance’ for UEFA
By rejecting a joint bid by Greece and Turkey to host the 2008 European soccer championship, European soccer authorities «missed the opportunity» to take an important political initiative, the government said yesterday. But Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos, whose brief includes sports, said Greece might try again in the future. «In the future, we might bid again more successfully, having had the experience of the 2004 Olympic Games,» Venizelos told journalists. On Thursday UEFA, European football’s ruling body, picked a common bid by Austria and Switzerland to host the 2008 championship. «It was a fully dignified failure, and I would say it was UEFA that missed the opportunity to undertake a very important political initiative,» the minister said. Athens and Ankara had billed their bid as a chance to boost troubled bilateral relations.
