Press releases

Ismaning, 28 May 2008 – For the first time in history, with UEFA EURO 2008™, UEFA, via its subsidiary UEFA Media Technologies SA ("UMET"), will be in charge of the full host broadcast operations for the UEFA European Football Championship. PLAZAMEDIA has been integrated into this operation and continues its involvement in international football at the highest level. PLAZAMEDIA is the only German team among the four UEFA appointed venue production teams which will participate in the host broadcast operations for UEFA EURO 2008TM.  UMET will innovatively showcase the matches of UEFA EURO 2008TM with high technical and production standards enabling UEFA to deliver a state of the art production to its media partners.

Florian Nowosad, CEO of PLAZAMEDIA, comments: "UEFA and UMET are setting new standards in digital and high definition sports broadcasting and delivering, with the help and equipment of PLAZAMEDIA, an innovative showcase of UEFA EURO 2008™." 

UMET will have over 2300 personnel involved in the UEFA EURO 2008™ host broadcast project.  As part of this project, PLAZAMEDIA will be deploying a crew of 163 to all the UEFA EURO 2008TM stadia in Austria and Switzerland for the HD productions, among them a production team, a host broadcasting operation manager, production manager, compound manager, venue assistants, VTR assistants and Eng Sound assistants. 90 different Camera Moving Systems supplied by PLAZAMEDIA and TV SKYLINE will ensure spectacular shots - for example, capturing the action with Netcams should provide extraordinary views from the goalkeeper’s perspective. The TV Match Director who is part of the PLAZAMEDIA supplied production team is Knut Fleischmann, who has also directed several matches at the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™.

UEFA - the Union of European Football Associations - is the governing body of football on the continent of Europe. UEFA’s core mission is to promote, protect and develop European football at every level of the game, to promote the principles of unity and solidarity, and to deal with all questions relating to European football. UEFA is an association of associations based on representative democracy, and is the governing body of European football.

UEFA Media Technologies SA ("UMET") is a fully owned subsidiary of UEFA and UEFA's arm for digital media.  UMET evaluates, implements and maintains solutions for the web, IT needs and television production for UEFA and develops know-how in digital media convergence for the benefit of football fans and the football family.

Amongst its activity areas, UMET manages UEFA's websites, uefa.com and euro2008.com, develops and implements UEFA's FAME system (the Football Administration Management Environment, dedicated to the administration of European football) and is in charge of UEFA EURO 2008™ host broadcast operations for UEFA.

The core UMET team consists of 130 professionals from 18 different countries, structured in Content, TV Production, ICT and broadcast Partner Services.  It provides multiple synergies dealing with complex projects in converged media for UEFA.