June 27, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-us-Sani 22, 1429

VIENNA, June 26: European Championship organizers apologized on Thursday for the 18-minute TV coverage blackout of the Germany-Turkey semifinal and pledged it won’t happen again for the final two games.

A freak storm in Vienna with hurricane-force winds of up to 140 kilometers per hour (87 mph) created three power cuts on Wednesday that stopped the images of the final stages of the thrilling game, which Germany won 3-2 in the Swiss city of Basel after a last minute-goal by Philipp Lahm, being broadcast to TV channels around the world.

“It’s a purely technical issue that we deeply regret, which (was due to) the coincidence of a lot of events including the weather which was pretty exceptional in Vienna,” said Alexandre Fourtoy, chief executive officer of UEFA Media Technologies.“We were affected during the second half of the Germany-Turkey game by three micro-cuts, which are less than one millisecond. But this millisecond was enough to cause our master-control room to reboot and that took several minutes (each time) and that’s why the signal was affected.

“The protection system was defective in detecting the cuts and to switch to the backup power. Yesterday, there was a massive storm in Vienna and we had three micro-cuts because of it. Because the detection system could not detect them we lost the signal.”

Fourtoy said changes had been made to ensure there was no repeat for Thursday’s semi-final in Vienna between Spain and Russia and for Sunday’s final at the same Ernst Happel Stadium venue.

“For tonight and for the final we have switched the power of the IBC (International Broadcast Center) to the generator power, which also has a backup of its own,” he said.

The main fan zone in Vienna was evacuated because of the storm and police said two fans were seriously injured after being trampled in the rush to get out.

Fourtoy said he didn’t yet know how many countries were affected by the TV blackout, but it affected a significant number of rights holders. Asked whether UEFA expected to receive compensation claims from the TV companies who lost pictures, he didn’t want to comment.

“I don’t know exactly the terms of the contracts as it is not my field,” Fourtoy said. “I don’t think there is an obligation to take the signal from Vienna because broadcasters have several capacities to manage a signal.”

UEFA spokesman William Gaillard said that if the storm had happened during the Vienna semifinal it was likely the game would have been halted.

“Yesterday, the central service for the Austrian meteorology told us that the winds reached 140 kph, which is hurricane strength,” he said. “It is obvious if you are playing a football game in this kind of weather the referee may decide to suspend it for a few minutes. Fortunately, the whole weather situation lasted for 25-30 minutes so that, if it had been in Vienna, it could have stopped the game. It is not the sort of weather that we usually get in June in central Europe.

“There is no forecast of this kind of thunderstorm tonight.’’—AP