UEFA has repeated its claim that expanding the European Championship will not lead to a watering down of its quality, reports SportBusiness. UEFA president Michel Platini last week maintained Euro 2016 would not suffer a drop in quality when it becomes the first edition of the tournament to feature 24 teams.
Poland and Ukraine's staging of Euro 2012 marks the final edition of the event in its current 16-team format, with France set to stage an expanded tournament in four years' time.
Speaking at a news conference on Friday, Euro 2012 tournament director Martin Kallen expanded on Platini's theme.
"The Scots are also not here - they bring a lot of emotions, a lot of atmosphere with them. We need to see how 2016 will be. For sure this tournament will be more and more looked at because more nations can participate." "At the moment we have the best teams here, but there are also great teams who are not," he said according to Reuters, listing Switzerland, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovenia and Norway as examples.