EURO 2016: WORTH TO KNOW

- For many decades football officials have been trying to reform the major tournaments - the championships of Europe and world cups. And so, for the first time, the European Championship final tournament will be contested by 24 teams, having been expanded from the 16-team format used previous years. Such an extension is associated with a high level of development of football in the Old World in recent years. However, many experts believe that with so many participants, competition is losing its high prestige, elitism, since it is easier to become one of lucky 24, than one of the strongest 16. Euro 2016 shall give an answer whose opinion is wrong, therefore, much attention is paid to it.

- Another important innovation: Hawk-Eye goal-line technology will be installed first time in the fields of France. The system will track the flight of the ball, indicating to the referee whether a goal has been scored. UEFA authorities finally decided on its usage in hope this will help avoid a repeat of situation at Euro 2012 when the referee did not count the true goal scored by Ukraine against the Britain in the final match which was a knockout stage. This referee’s error influenced the result, and was not the first one in the history of the tournament, so the furore sparked UEFA into introducing such technology.

- It will be the third time that France hosts the tournament, after the inaugural tournament in 1960 and the 1984 finals. No other country was honoured so as to host the European Championship for the second time. By the way, in the 1984 the French team became champions, and in 1960 they took fourth place, so we can safely say that at home they play very well, not in vain being one of the main favourites of the upcoming tournament.

- The Championship is expected to pull a record number of visitors to France – about seven million of fans, the third part of who will surely get to the stadiums. In this regard, the local authorities promise to arrange for unprecedented security measures, as after the terrorist attacks in Europe in 2015 and 2016, there were talks about holding tournament without any fans or even to cancel it. Fortunately, these ideas have been refused and the championship will be a real sports festival, not only the organizers, but also the top political leadership of France are responsible for it.

The official slogan of the Euro 2016 tournament is Le Rendez-Vous. The official ball for the games was developed by Adidas, a technical sponsor, it has a name of Beau Jeu, which translates as beautiful game.

The official mascot of Euro2016 is Super Victor, he is a child superhero in the kit of the France national football team, he received majority of votes from the public on the official UEFA website.

Conceived by the well-known Portuguese designer agency Brandia Central, the official logo depicts the Championship trophy with the blue, white and red colours of the French flag, and accompanied by redefined black and white yin and yang symbols. According to the concept, the design is based on the theme celebrating the art of football. The logo was unveiled back in 2013.

The competition's official opening song was written by the famous Parisian DJ David Guetta. Get ready for the fact that this song will become a European hit of the summer 2016.

All matches, and they will be 51, will be played in ten stadiums in ten cities. Ukraine is guaranteed to play in three cities: Lille, Marseille and Lyon. Our team will start their campaign on June 12, with match with one of the main contenders for victory the German national team.

The trophy of the tournament is the legendary Henri Delaunay Cup, named in honour of organizer of the first championship, is the coveted dream for any European football player. Each champion keeps it for four years only, until the next tournament, and after the country-winner remains with a copy only. According to the rules, there are only two ways to get the original Cup: the first is to win the Euro Championship 5 times. No one came even close to this number of triumphs for more than 60 years, because the champions, the Germany and the Spain, won "only" three times each. The second option is to win the championship three times in a row, and the Spain, winners of Euro 2008 and 2012, this year can already keep a reward forever, winning for the third time in a row. Whether two-time defending champions will be able to achieve such a phenomenal result, is one of the main intrigues.