A new traffic record has been set on the official website of UEFA EURO 2004™ – euro2004.com – following the Group B games between Croatia and England and Switzerland and France on Monday, 21 June 2004.
A record 12.6 million page views were registered by fans logging on during the final Group B matches, while there were more than 2 million visits to the site in total on 21 June. The record statistics highlight the success of the brand new Live MatchCentre application, which has proven to be a big hit with fans.
This groundbreaking online match application is an attractive multimedia applet which merges live minute-by-minute match commentary, detailed team, player and match statistics, near-live action photos from games and a worldwide chat forum.
Live MatchCentre is accessible from the euro2004.com homepage before matches kick-off, with the respective information from previous games also being accessible from the ‘Match’ pages, within the ‘Tournament’ section. Visitors can experience the MatchCentre, with details of the coverage of the Croatia–England match, by following this link: http://www.euro2004.com/live/matchday=10/day=1/Match=1059182/index.html
euro2004.com continues to draw increasing interest on a daily basis – over 25 million visits have generated more than 300 million page views since the site was launched on 31 March 2004.
Commenting on the results, UEFA New Media CEO, Alexandre Fourtoy stated: ‘We aim to bring the excitement of the games taking place at UEFA EURO 2004™ to Internet users around the World. The popularity of the Live MatchCentre, in particular during matches, shows that fans are logging on to euro2004.com to keep up with all the action as it happens.’
Fans visiting euro2004.com when games are being played can utilise the Action service, which features audio commentary in seven languages, produced in partnership with Real Networks. The service also enables football fans to access video match highlights immediately after the final whistle and is available for £9.95 in the UK, $14.95 in the USA and €14.95 across Europe and the rest of the world.
euro2004.com has been visited by football fans from over 200 countries. The site is produced completely in-house by UEFA New Media’s 40-strong international team of journalists and technicians in Lisbon, London, Nyon and Munich and correspondents throughout Europe. It delivers comprehensive coverage of the tournament in nine languages to fans across the World.
Issued by Fast Web Media on behalf of UEFA New Media
For further information:
Rob Salmon at Fast Web Media: +44 (0)161 835 3444 or (0) 7901 518777
rob.salmon@fastwebmedia.com