Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine proved an unprecedented sell-out and the tournament generated revenues ahead of the 2008 edition in Switzerland and Austria, UEFA’s top watchdog said.

The run-up to the June 8 to July 1 European Championship saw much-touted fears that high accommodation prices in Ukraine, plus transport headaches, would dent sales.

Doomsayers’ concerns were stoked by the fact that England’s traditionally ardent supporters bought only half of the tickets allocated to their official fan club for each group stage match.

But the final figures told a very different story.

“We had 1.44 million attendance, and we sold 100 per cent of the tickets. That’s the first time we’ve really sold 100 per cent of the tickets,” Martin Kallen, operations director at European football’s governing body, said.

“If you’re looking where we have most attendance, in Kiev it was Sweden-England with 64,640, and of course in Poland it was in Warsaw, on the opening match, Poland against Greece, where we had 59,070,” Kallen said.

“Average attendance of all matches was 46,450, which is higher than Switzerland and Austria, where we had smaller stadiums,” he added.

Kallen acknowledged that there was disappointment over no-shows at some games – which led to gaps in stadiums that were all-too visible during some match broadcasts.

“One of the down points was that we sold 100 per cent of the tickets but for attendance we had 98.6 per cent, so in some matches we could see that seats were empty. They were all sold, but some people didn’t attend for some reason,” he said.

In addition to supporters inside the eight stadiums in Poland and Ukraine, a total of seven million people watched matches by live link in the host countries’ fanzones, up from 4.2 million in Switzerland and Austria.