UEFA Executive Committee decisions from Venice

The UEFA Executive Committee today concluded its one-day meeting in Venice, Italy, the last such gathering to be held in 2011 by European football's top decision-making body.

Chaired by UEFA President Michel Platini, the Executive Committee listened to the summary of a number of issues that were discussed at the strategy meeting in Cyprus in September with the 53 UEFA member national associations. The Executive Committee thus decided to approve the expansion of the UEFA Women's EURO final tournament from 12 to 16 teams as from 2017. It also approved the increase from four to eight teams of the UEFA European Women's Under-17 Championship final tournament.

The Executive Committee rubber-stamped, too, a change in the competition regulations of UEFA EURO 2012 – specifically paragraph 10.08, and a new paragraph, 10.09, was added. These paragraphs concern the replaying of a match during UEFA EURO 2012 should it need to be abandoned after starting. In essence, if a match is abandoned after it has begun, for whatever reason, rather than replaying the match in full the next day, the new regulations say that only the remaining time left should be replayed the next day – and with the existing team sheet, players on the pitch and substitutes as when the game was initially abandoned. Further details of the amendments made to the regulations will be posted on UEFA.com in due course.

The Executive Committee approved the proposal of the UEFA HatTrick Committee relating to the UEFA HatTrick III regulations for the assistance programme's 2012–16 cycle. HatTrick is the name given to the programme that redistributes revenues generated from the UEFA EUROs among UEFA's 53 member associations for investment back into football.

HatTrick III spans the financial period from the 2012/13 UEFA season to the 2015/16 UEFA season and will consist of a maximum total payment of €3m per UEFA member association for investment (physical and intellectual), in social and grassroots projects, and a maximum yearly contribution of €1.6m per UEFA member association, split into €600,000 as a yearly solidarity payment to cover running costs and €1m as a yearly incentive payment for participating in UEFA youth, women's and futsal competitions, for implementing and applying the UEFA club licensing system, for implementing and applying the various UEFA conventions and charters, and for improving good governance within member associations. Therefore the entire global total redistributed by HatTrick III is €498m.

In addition, the Executive Committee chose Belgium as the hosts of UEFA Futsal EURO 2014.

Finally, the Executive Committee approved the autonomous agreement regarding the EU Social Dialogue that brings together the parties of UEFA, the European Professional Football Leagues (EPFL), the European Club Association (ECA) and FIFPro Division Europe. The main element of Social Dialogue is a means for organisations, representing employer and employees, to get together to agree employment and social conditions. The main element for football involves the minimum requirements for player contracts in Europe. Before the agreement can be implemented it must, however, be approved by each party's appropriate decision-making bodies, so it will be submitted to the UEFA Congress in March 2012. The date provisionally set for a possible signing ceremony is April 2012 in Brussels.