UEFA make €250m profit

Euro 2008, co-hosted by Austria and Switzerland, generated a net profit of €250 million ($393.7 million) for UEFA, European soccer's governing body said yesterday.

UEFA said the money would be used to finance its youth and women's competitions, refereeing and coaching programmes and administrative costs.

Martin Kallen, chief operating officer for the event organisers, said that in comparison with the 2004 finals in Portugal the 2008 event had seen improvements "in almost all areas", including satisfactory television viewing figures, high public transport usage and the lack of any major security incidents.

Organisers said poor weather at the start of the tournament and the black market resale of tickets had been among the less satisfactory aspects.

More than 1.7 million ticket applications were cancelled before the event in connection with the black market, with a further 1,300 tickets cancelled or seized during the tournament itself.

"Clearly the black market remains a problem though," Kallen said.

"Despite all our efforts there were many, many tickets that ended up on the black market. We will have to look into what we can do about that in the future, although we know it is not something we can ever control one hundred per cent."