Sports: Soccer: Italy denied next Euro Football Tournament allegedly because of violence

A blog-entry at Eursoc shares info about the internal politics of soccer (called "football" in Europe). At stake are the location of the 1012 all-Europe games (Apr18,2k7):

Euro 2012 For Poland

Football: Italy may be world champions, but the country's recent history of crowd violence and match-fixing seems to have damaged its standing with European soccer's governing body, UEFA.

Today it was announced that Poland and Ukraine will jointly host the Euro 2012 football championship, not Italy, which was previously a firm favourite for the tournament.

Sports > Soccer/Football, by Sportikos

The head of Poland's football association Michal Listkiewicz said he "couldn't believe" UEFA's decision.

EURSOC can't really believe it either: Italy isn't the only nation facing a match fixing scandal. In Poland, over 80 people have been arrested in an enquiry into match fixing. The government suspended the entire football board, but was forced to back down following pressure from world football body FIFA.

Italy played host to the 1990 World Cup Finals.

This will be the first time since 1976 that a former Iron Curtain nation has hosted a major football tournament. Back then, Yugoslavia hosted the competition, which was won by Czechoslovakia.

The current champion of Europe is Greece. Next year sees the 2008 tournament, held in Austria and Switzerland.

In any case, not counting match fixes, the violence in Italian "futball" has been horrendous, like North American hockey.