These days a delegation from the European Football Association, UEFA, is visiting the four host cities of the upcoming UEFA European Under-21 Championship in Denmark 2011; Århus, Aalborg, Herning and Viborg.
And with more than a year to go the Danes are ahead of the time schedule.
For the first time in UEFA’s history, all 53 member nations of UEFA are participating in the qualification tournament leading to the finals in Denmark. Eventually, the Danish Football Association, DBU, is looking forward to welcoming Europe’s eight best, star-studded, national U-21 teams to Århus, Aalborg, Viborg and Herning 12 June to 25 June.
DBU is well under way with the preparations, These days for example, DBU follows UEFA on a site inspection to the four host cities to scrutinise the tournament plans, venues etc.
U-21 2011 Tournament Director, Christian Bordinggaard from DBU, says: ”The host cities stand united and are well-prepared and keen to make a good impression at the site inspection. The U-21 event is highlighted in all four host cities and everyone is ahead of their time schedule. Already these days, for example, we are scrutinising the venue facilities”.
UEFA Event Manager, Marcello Alleca, adds: “The tournament preparations are progressing well. With more than a year to kick-off it is time to go into detail. So far, the Danish hosts have turned out to be well-prepared and committed. We are more than satisfied and hope that the professional attitude and commitment we have seen so far will go on and perhaps be even stronger now that we are approaching a more demanding stage of the preparations.”
According to Marcello Alleca the lesson to be learnt from U-21 2009 in Sweden is “you can never be too early in terms of your event preparations”. Unforeseen things happen and not till half a year before kick-off the local organisers will know the actual number of participants. Therefore Marcello Alleca is happy to conclude that Denmark is ahead of the time schedule right now.
UEFA is carrying out 3 site inspections in Denmark prior to the U-21 tournament. The said site inspection is the first. The second is scheduled this autumn 2010.
Sport Event Denmark is one of several committed partners involved in the U-21 event 2011, which is one of the largest in Denmark in 2011. A year, which will be a spectacular display of great sports events. Just to mention a few: the UCI Track World Championships and the Women’s World Curling Championships. Check out the entire event calendar here.
Further, check out the interview with Marcello Alleca, Event Manager, UEFA, at Sport Event Denmark’s youtube-channel.