The eyes of the football world are focused Cardiff today where the hosts of UEFA EURO2012 are announced by UEFA.

The hosts
Three candidates, Poland/Ukraine, Croatia/Hungary and Italy are awaiting the decission on who will stage the European finals in 2012 – following Austria and Switzerland, who are hosts of the Euro2008.

Final deliberations
The UEFA Executive Committee heard an evaluation by UEFA's administration, and final presentations by the three candidates at their meeting in Cardiff yesterday. The decission will be made public today.

Since 2004
The shortlist to stage UEFA EURO2012 has been narrowed down to three candidates after a process lasting more than two years - with UEFA's member associations initially invited to submit bids in December 2004. The bidding process has been split into two phases, where the first phase led to the pre-selection of three bidders, and the final decision on the hosts is the culmination of the second phase.

Bid shortlist
Ten associations, involving eight bids, informed UEFA by the end of January 2005 that they would be interesting in holding the event. Five bid dossiers were subsequently presented to UEFA in July 2005, and the Executive Committee reduced the shortlist to the current three candidates at its meeting in Malta in November 2005. UEFA decided last autumn to postpone the announcement of the decision from last December to today to give the candidates the opportunity to fine-tune their bids.

Vital criteria
The choice will be made after assessment of the UEFA evaluation report which centres on vital criteria for organising a EURO finals. These include stadiums, transport, infrastructures, legal and overall conditions, accommodation and security. Recommendations are also being put forward by UEFA's national teams committee to help the Executive Committee reach its decision.

Secret ballot
The Executive Committee vote will be by secret ballot, and the Italian and Ukrainian representatives will not be eligible to vote. A quorum of eight members will be required for validity. Each member has one vote, and abstentions or spoilt ballots will not be counted. An absolute majority of over 50% is needed. If there is no absolute majority in the first ballot, the bidder with the least votes will be excluded. A second ballot would then take place with the remaining two candidates. In the case of the result being level after the first ballot, an intermediate ballot will be held to exclude one candidate. Finally, the number of votes cast per bidder will be made public.

Previous hosts
The previous UEFA European Championship hosts since it became a final tournament, first with eight teams, then with 16 from 1996, are: Italy (1980), France (1984), Germany (1988), Sweden (1992), England (1996), Belgium/Netherlands (2000) and Portugal (2004). 2008 finals in Switzerland/Austria take place from the 7th until the 29th of June 2008, with the final being played in Wien/Vienna.