by Rob Atherton
When the draw was made for the Euro 2012 championships, there was great excitement amongst the fans. Their thoughts turned to the new destinations they would visit following their team in their quest to make the finals which will be hosted jointly by Poland and Ukraine.
However, travel plans can't be made until the dates of the qualifying matches were decided. In the first instance, it was left to the teams in the 9 groups to hold a meeting to try to agree fixtures. The countries are free to chose the fixture dates from a list of international dates between September 2010 and October 2011.
Within weeks of the Euro 2012 Qualifying draw being made, meetings were being held all round Europe and in five of the nine groups, fixtures were agreed which meant supporters could start making their travel plans. For the countries of the four remaining groups, the fixtures were decided by UEFA. Among the teams who didn't agree fixtures were both England and Republic of Ireland who enjoy huge travelling support. This meant the loyal supporters had to wait a little longer to make their travel plans.
The countries from the four unresolved groups headed to Tel Aviv to await their fate at the hands of UEFA. The procedure was pretty straight forward. UEFA have a standard fixture list with fixtures such as A v B on a specific dates. All that was left to do was to draw the teams from each group into a letter thus giving the set of fixtures for the remaining four Euro 2012 Qualifying groups. Supporters could start planning their trips at last.
About the Author
Rob is a traveller and football supporter.
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