Tournament costs add up

The overall cost of the Euro 2004 football championship has been estimated at 800 million euros in a study carried out by one of the country’s leading universities. This sum includes stadium costs, parking, access routes, urban requalification schemes, security and sundry services. The study, realised by a consortium of universities lead by the Higher Institute of Economy and Management (ISEG), also made a comparison with the stadiums being built for the World Cup 2006 event in Germany, which shows that the Portuguese tournament compares very favourably. A total of 595 million euros has been spent on the construction or remodelling of stadiums for Euro 2004. This compares to an outlay of 1,451 million euros spent on the construction of the 12 stadiums for the World Cup in Germany.