Euro 2008 organisers turn blind eye and celebrate on high

JUNGFRAUJOCH, Switzerland, June 8 (Reuters) Organisers of next year's European soccer championships turned a blind eye to FIFA's new altitude regulations today as they marked the one year countdown to Euro 2008.

Two teams of past and present international players staged a 10-minute friendly match on an artificial pitch laid out on a glacier perched beneath Switzerland's 4,158-metre high Jungfrau peak.

Switzerland and Austria are set to co-host the 2008 tournament which will kick off in the Swiss city of Basel on June 7.

''We got the idea for the game on the glacier after watching television pictures of Roger Federer's exhibition tennis match against Andre Agassi on top of Dubai's biggest hotel and thinking what we could do to make something similar,'' Euro 2008 chief operating officer Martin Kallen told Reuters today.

''It's perfect because Switzerland and Austria are well known for their mountain scenery. And I'm sure FIFA won't mind as we only played for five minutes each half!'' Last month, world soccer's governing body announced an immediate ban on international games played more than 2,500 metres above sea level, arguing that high altitude matches could damage players' health and give an unfair advantage to the home side.

The ban has drawn fierce criticism from a handful of mountainous South American countries led by Bolivia, but the players involved in today's match seemed to share FIFA's stance.

''It was pretty hard to breathe and I'm glad we don't have to play up here every week,'' Arsenal and Switzerland defender Johan Djourou told Reuters after the game, which ended in a somewhat stage-managed 5-5 draw.

''You get pretty dizzy if you make too many quick turns,'' agreed former Denmark midfielder Michael Laudrup. ''If it had been a 90-minute match I'm not sure what would have happened.'' Tournament organisers said they were well on track to host the 2008 event with Kallen telling Reuters yesterday that his team were ahead of previous championships at the same stage.

Four of the eight stadiums, in Vienna, Bern, Basel and Geneva, are already complete or in need of only minor modifications, while the remaining four, in Zurich, Innsbruck, Salzburg and Klagenfurt, are due to be finished by September.

REUTERS BJR RK1910