Police death puts cloud over Italy's Euro 2012 bid

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's bid to host the 2012 European soccer championship risks being derailed after a policeman was killed during riots outside a Serie A match between Catania and Palermo last week.

Italy's bid is one of three for the competition, along with joint bids by Poland and Ukraine, and Croatia and Hungary.

The winner will be announced after a vote by UEFA's 15-man executive committee on April 18 in Cardiff.

Italy had been considered favorites to host their first major soccer competition since the World Cup in 1990, but the death of 38-year-old Filippo Raciti dealt another blow to a nation still smarting from last year's match-fixing scandal.

UEFA's newly elected president Michel Platini has refused to comment on how Raciti's death might affect Italy's bid, saying simply he supported the decision by Italian soccer federation (FIGC) chief Luca Pancalli to suspend all national and international matches.

"I offer my full support for the measures adopted by the commissioner. It was right to suspend the matches," Platini, who played for Juventus between 1982 and 1987, said.

"We have to work together with the Italian football (soccer) authorities and politicians to help football find a solution to this problem of violence that is poisoning the sport in Europe."

FIFA President Sepp Blatter summed up the shock felt around the world.

"The moment has arrived for Italy to reorganize football, in strong hands. Definitively," he told Gazzetta dello Sport.

SAFETY CRITERIA

Last Friday's events show how far Italy has to go before making its football grounds safe.

Only four stadiums in Serie A -- Rome's Olympic Stadium, Palermo's Barbera Stadium, Turin's Olympic Stadium, and Siena's Artemio Franchi stadium -- properly fulfil the FIGC's safety criteria for national and international matches.

Luigi Ludovici, project manager for Italy's Euro 2012 bid, said if Italy held the tournament it would leave a legacy of safe and up-to-date venues.

"Our bid was founded on the desire to start a new era in Italian football, which includes modernizing the stadiums, something that could prevent a repeat of incidents like the one last Friday," he told Reuters.

He also pointed out that violence in Italian soccer, though common at club level, was virtually non-existent among followers of the national team.

"Lots of fans followed Italy to the last European championship and the World Cup (in Germany)," he said. "They took a lot of passion with them, but they were never a problem. This is a problem that comes up more at club level than at international level.

"At the World Cup in 1990 we were more worried about violence from visiting supporters rather than our own".

Italy, who hosted versions of the European championship in 1968 and 1980, may still have an edge in the race for Euro 2012.

The Poland-Ukraine bid was weakened last month when the Polish sports minister suspended the country's soccer association as part of an investigation into alleged match-fixing, a move that prompted FIFA to threaten to exclude Poland from international competition.