Breaking News - UEFA Chooses France to Host Euro 2016

(ATR) UEFA springs no surprise by awarding the 2016 European Championships to favorites France following a vote by the executive committee meeting in Geneva today.

UEFA president Michel Platini made the announcement at the Swiss city's Espace Hippomène, the site of the bid teams' final presentations to the executive committee on Friday morning.

France won by the narrowest of margins. They received 7 of the 13 members votes in the second round of voting, with Turkey getting 6. Italy were eliminated in the first ballot.

French Football Federation president Jean-Pierre Escalettes spoke of his "happiness and pride in gaining the trust and confidence of UEFA".

"France will fulfil its promises. This trust will not be betrayed," he told a news conference.

"Today is the beginning of a new and beautiful adventure for France," Escalettes said.

Frenchman Platini, who was not eligible to take part in the vote, declined to publicly express any satisfaction that his country had won the vote, in his comments to reporters after revealing the successful bid.

"It was a situation that was certainly not easy for me. We had three great bids," he said, noting that France would do a good job in organizing the tournament.

For Turkey it was third time unlucky following failed bids for Euro 2008 and 2012.

France, which staged the 1984 European Championships, was a strong favourite to beat Italy and Turkey for Euro 2016 following a favorable assessment in the UEFA evaluation report.

Under its bid France aims to modernize its national football stadia infrastructure and "provide French football with a mobilizing and unifying project over the next 10 years, creating positive sustainable effects".

It would spend $2.1 billion, a mix of publicly funded and public-private partnerships, on stadium projects.

The stadiums are in 12 cities: Bordeaux, Lens, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Nancy, Nice, Paris, Saint-Denis, Saint-Etienne, Strasbourg and Toulouse. Only nine of the 12 would be used for matches with the others earmarked as back-ups.

New-builds would be in Nice, Bordeaux, Lyon and Lille; seven major stadium renovations are planned.

The 76,474-seat Stade de France in the French capital, earmarked for the opening match and final, would not require a significant revamp. The next biggest venues are Marseille's 65,000-capacity Stade Velodrome and Lyon's proposed 57,600-seater.

Earlier today, all three bid teams wheeled out their big guns in their final 30-minute pitches to the UEFA Executive Committee.

While French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Turkish President Abdullah Gul participated in their country's bid presentations, Italy could only offer state secretary of sport Rocco Crimi. AC Milan legend Paolo Maldini played a small cameo role in the Italy presentation.

France's big moment came when Zinedine Zidane strode on stage to explain what hosting Euro 2016 would do for French football and the country's younger generation of players. Zidane, a three-time FIFA World Player of the Year, inspired France to winning the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000 in Holland-Belgium.

Four bids for Euro 2016 were submitted to UEFA in March 2009 but Norway-Sweden dropped out of the race last December because the two nations’ governments refused to pledge the necessary financial guarantees.

UEFA's flagship tournament will be expanded from 16 to 24 teams after Poland-Ukraine’s co-hosting of the 2012 edition.

More to follow...

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