UEFA - Union of European Football Associ
The Official UEFA EURO 2008 Website - euro2008.com
Nyon (ots)
Delivering complete event coverage to European football fans across the globe
Produced by UEFA Media Technologies SA (UMET), the official event website of UEFA EURO 2008, euro2008.com has been launched as part of a converged media offering for football fans. It can be found at www.euro2008.com.
euro2008.com delivers comprehensive coverage of the tournament to European football fans across the globe. The site is available in 10 languages - English, Portuguese, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Chinese and Korean - an increase of two languages from UEFA EURO 2004.
The site is the result of a converged approach towards production, as UMET software solutions feed the host broadcast operations and also the web. The host broadcast operations will be a source of content for the web offering, and in turn, the web will be a source of content for the television production operations.
euro2008.com will become the natural focus for fans seeking official tournament news, squad announcements, injury updates and venue and travel information such as detailed information on all eight host cities, 3-D stadium maps, vodcast guides, journey planners and detailed mapping solutions.
The April release - marking 50 days until the start of the final tournament on 7 June - sees heavy emphasis on the history of the competition. Fans can use the graphic timeline to access extensive information on the 12 previous tournaments, including match reports on all 173 final tournament matches since 1960 and profiles and unique images of past winners and tournament stars.
The website will interlink video, audio text and photo content, and will be a forum for user participation by giving users the chance to leave comments and opinions on blogs and photo blogs as part of the 'Fanzone' section. Users can also share and rate photos uploaded to the site.
Users from around the world will be able to access euro2008.com/mobile on their mobile devices.
Visitors to the site will be able to personalise their experience online by drawing in official euro2008.com news feeds to their personal page. There is also the capacity to push content onto existing social network pages, and download widgets to enable content taken from euro2008.com to be spread and shared across the internet.
euro2008.com also features a range of games provided by the official tournament sponsors: visitors can play fantasy football, tackle the video quiz challenge or vote for the goal of the day.
"The site offers multiple ways to experience UEFA EURO 2008 around the key concepts of participation by the fans and personalisation of the site for users," said David Farrelly, Head of Web and Content at UEFA Media Technologies. "We will be inviting not only more interaction and participation, but also a range of possibilities for fans to customise the site according to their team, their location or their main interests."
THE SITE IN NUMBERS
4 Locations
Euro2008.com will operate from four offices in the four different countries during the Euro 2008 tournament.
1) International Broadcast centre in Vienna
2) Basel - base for the core editorial team
3) London - live commentary and logging services
4) Munich - organisation of mobile products throughout the
tournament.Satellite bureaus delivering the multilingual services will also operate from Cologne, Paris, Milan, Madrid, Lisbon, Riga and Hong Kong during the event.
10 Languages
English, Portuguese, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Chinese and Korean.
37 Correspondents
As part of the Host Broadcasting Operations, 21 correspondents and 16 ENG crews will be located in close proximity to the 16 competing teams, providing live reports and video interviews direct from the stadiums and training camps.
130 Journalists/Technical staff
There will be 130 journalists/correspondents, editors, producers, camera crews and interpreters on site, all help with content delivery, and the integration of the interactive community and personalised features.
30,000 Pages
30,000 individual pages will make up the site (excluding statistics and data pages as these are too numerous to count)
Note to editors:
UEFA Media Technologies SA is the service company created by UEFA to provide all technology solutions, content solutions and assistance to ensure the development of European football, to explore and exploit all opportunities in the new media world and to assist the football family in their technology developments.
Issued by Fast Web Media on behalf of UEFA Media Technologies SA
Contact:
Rachel Pearse at Fast Web Media
Phone: +44/161/831'04'15
E-Mail: rachel.pearse@fastwebmedia.com