All eyes turn to Montreux

Media interest
Montreux is a hive of media activity. Such is the box office appeal of international football these days, it would be easy to mistake this draw with the glitz and glamour of the Oscars. UEFA will welcome more than 180 radio and television companies, 200 written-press journalists, 60 photographers and 38 national coaches to the Congress Centre as the eyes of Europe fall on both the main draw (at 12.00CET) and the preceding 2006/07 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualifying draw (10.00CET).

First draw
One of the standout features of the event will be the presence of Kazakhstan who, having joined UEFA in 2002, make their long-awaited debut in the UEFA European Championship. In a draw where the possibilities seem endless, the only certainty is that nations in the same pot cannot meet each other (with the exception of Pot 7 where two will be drawn into the same group).

Top two qualify
The qualifying competition, which will begin in autumn 2006, comprises one group of eight teams and six groups of seven. The winners and runners-up will all advance to the final round in Austria and Switzerland, with the co-hosts progressing automatically.

Seeded teams
Greece are seeded as holders while the other associations have been classified by UEFA on the basis of results achieved in the qualifying tournaments for UEFA EURO 2004™ and the 2006 FIFA World Cup. This means UEFA EURO 2004™ finalists Portugal, England, France, Sweden, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands are in Pot 1 with big guns such as Germany, Italy and Spain lurking dangerously in Pot 2.

New records
As European football moves from strength to strength, the 2008 spectacular is expected to shatter the records set by its predecessor in Portugal. UEFA EURO 2004™ broke all previous bests: 7.9 billion TV viewers in total, and more than 150 million live viewers for each of the 31 games. The final was seen by an estimated 279 million viewers - an unbelievable increase of 157 per cent on corresponding figures for UEFA EURO 2000™.

Great expectations
Yet UEFA Chief Executive Lars-Christer Olsson expects the co-hosts to make a tremendous success of the finals in 30 months' time, as given their fusion of German, French and Italian ingredients they can pride themselves on robust national culture, efficiency and hospitality. "It will be great," he told uefa.com. "First of all, both countries are in central Europe, easy to reach, both are well-developed countries and there are plenty of opportunities for the fans coming for the football to see other things."

UEFA EURO 2008™ qualifying round draw
Pot 1

Pot 2

Pot 3

Pot 4

Pot 5

Pot 6

Pot 7