![]() Twelve of the sixteen finalists participated at the previous tournament in 2008. The remaining eight-second placed teams contested two-legged play-offs, and the four winners qualified for the finals. At the conclusion of the qualifying group stage in October 2011, the nine group winners qualified automatically, along with the highest ranked second placed team. The qualifying process began in August 2010 and concluded in November 2011. As defending champions, Spain was automatically top-seeded. The teams were divided into nine groups, with the draw using the new UEFA national team coefficient for the first time in order to determine the seedings. Fifty-one teams entered to compete for the fourteen remaining places in the finals, alongside co-hosts Poland and Ukraine. The draw for the UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying competition took place in Warsaw on 7 February 2010. During the preparation process in Poland and Ukraine, UEFA repeatedly expressed concern about their preparation to host the event, with different candidates reported as being alternative hosts if they did not improve however, in the end, UEFA affirmed their selection. There were some later alterations from the initial bid plan, regarding the venues, before UEFA confirmed the eight host cities in 2009. Italy, which received the remaining votes, had been considered favourites to win the hosting, but incidents of fan violence and a match-fixing scandal were widely cited as factors behind their failure. Their bid received an absolute majority of votes, and was therefore announced the winner, without requiring a second round. Poland–Ukraine became the third successful joint bid for the European Championship, after those of Belgium–Netherlands ( 2000) and Austria–Switzerland ( 2008). ![]() On 18 April 2007, the Poland–Ukraine bid was chosen by a vote of the UEFA Executive Committee, at a meeting in Cardiff. ![]() The final decision was due to be announced on 8 December 2006 in Nyon, but this was postponed to "give bidding associations more time for the fine-tuning of their bids". In May 2006, this was followed by a second round of the selection process, which included visits by UEFA to all candidates. In November 2005, after an initial consideration of the bid data by UEFA, both the Greek and Turkish bids were eliminated from the process, to leave three candidates. The hosting of the event was initially contested by five bids representing seven countries: Croatia–Hungary, Greece, Italy, Poland–Ukraine, and Turkey. As at Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland, both 2012 host nations were eliminated in the group stage. Spain had already gained entry to the 2013 Confederations Cup by winning the World Cup, so runners-up Italy qualified instead. Spain became the first team to win two consecutive European Championships, and also three straight major tournaments ( Euro 2008, 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012). Euro 2012 set attendance records for the 16-team format, for the highest aggregate attendance (1,440,896) and average per game (46,481). Five new stadiums were built for the tournament, and the hosts invested heavily in improving infrastructure such as railways and roads at UEFA's request. This was the last European Championship to employ the 16-team finals format in use since 1996 from Euro 2016 onward, it was expanded to 24 finalists.Įuro 2012 was played at eight venues, four in each host country. The two host teams qualified automatically while the remaining 14 finalists were decided through a qualifying competition, featuring 51 teams, from August 2010 to November 2011. Poland and Ukraine's bid was chosen by the UEFA Executive Committee on 18 April 2007. The final tournament, held between 8 June and 1 July 2012, was co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine (both first time hosts), and was won by Spain, who beat Italy 4–0 in the final at the Olympic Stadium, Kyiv, Ukraine. The 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2012 or simply Euro 2012, was the 14th European Championship for men's national football teams organised by UEFA.
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