Unconfirmed Sources report that Euro 2004 organizers have failed soccer fans world wide. In the lead up to the tournament officials apparently forget to tell both Greece and Portugal that they couldn't win. UEFA CEO Lars-Christer Olsson is under pressure to resign over the scandal.
Our sources indicate that the midlevel UEFA official whose job it was to tell the Greeks and Portuguese that they couldn't win just "forgot" to do it. The official, Arturo Jones, called in sick on the day that he was to tell the teams and nobody in the office took his place. When Jones returned to UEFA headquarters later in the week he "forgot" to follow up and make sure the teams had been notified. By the time Jones realized his error Greece and Portugal were already in the finals.
Lars-Christer Olsson has denied that UEFA has failed to organize the Euro 2004 Tournament properly. "Those teams were told in no uncertain terms that they could not win. We have standards and rules that we apply to big European tournaments. Big soccer power houses like Germany, France, Italy, and England can win and little countries such as Portugal and Greece can't. I just won't believe we didn't tell them. We will get to the bottom of this. I can tell you this, it will never happen again."
Portuguese Coach Luiz Felipe Scolari tells a different story. "Hey, we were preparing to play and no one came to tell us we couldn't win. So we went out there and won.
Greek coach Otto Rehhagel tells a similar story. "It's not our fault. No one told us we could 't win."
The two unlikely finalists will do battle on Sunday at even odds. This championship is truly up from grabs.
One thing is for certain, however, UEFA CEO Lars-Christer Olsson is going to have a lot of explaining to do when the dust settles after Euro 2004.
