New Intertoto format on the way

小妖

New Intertoto format on the way
Wednesday, 21 September 2005

The format of UEFA's summer competition, the UEFA Intertoto Cup, will change for the 2006/07 season, following a decision taken by the UEFA Executive Committee at its meeting in Rome on Wednesday.

Three rounds
Under the new format, three rounds will be played in the competition, instead of five. The eleven victorious teams from the Intertoto Cup third round will go through to the second qualifying round of the UEFA Cup. The 49 participating associations will have one place in principle.

Current system
Under the current system in the competition, which was launched in the summer of 1995, sides have played five rounds, with three final winners progressing to the UEFA Cup first round.

Eleven UEFA Cup qualifiers
"Eleven sides, instead of three, will qualify for the UEFA Cup," said UEFA communications and public affairs director William Gaillard. "We will also endeavour to have one participant from the member associations. If this is not the case because of vacancies, or countries not entering teams into the competition, then we will establish criteria to designate clubs from other associations to enter the competition."

Club ownership
Another item under discussion was the ownership of clubs – "especially when it comes to the integrity of the [UEFA] competitions, for example, if you have one owner having a dominant position in more than one club," as UEFA Chief Executive Lars-Christer Olsson put it.

FIFA discussions
"We have agreed that this matter will be brought to the FIFA Task Force announced by FIFA President [Joseph S Blatter] at the FIFA Congress in Marrakesh. We are collecting information for further discussions," he continued. UEFA does not allow dual ownership of clubs participating in its competitions.

Leagues memorandum
Mr Olsson also announced that UEFA has signed a memorandum of understanding with the European professional leagues, and agreed to the constitution of the leagues. This means that the European leagues will now open an office in Nyon, Switzerland where UEFA's headquarters are based. "We have offered [the leagues] space in one of our buildings," the UEFA CEO went on.

2012 bid process
Five candidates are in the running to host the UEFA EURO 2012™ final round - Croatia/Hungary (joint bid), Greece, Italy, Poland/Ukraine (joint bid) and Turkey – and the Executive Committee agreed on the principles for the remaining bidding process.

November short list
"There is going to be a presentation to the Executive Committee at the next meeting in November," Mr Olsson explained. "In this meeting, the Executive Committee should decide on a short list, where two or three of the candidates will continue to the final round [of the process], with the final decision [on the hosts] being taken in December 2006."

UEFA.COM