Denmark ready to take on mantle

Among the keenest observers of the 2009 UEFA European Under-21 Championship was Christian Bordinggaard, the tournament director of the 2011 finals. The Dane said interest in his homeland "is already huge" as he told uefa.com of the challenges which lie ahead.

uefa.com: What was your role in Sweden?

Christian Bordinggaard: It's been a great experience for me to see the Swedish organising committee arrange such a beautiful championship. I've been directly involved in some of the games as a venue director and on the other hand I've just been an observer watching them build up the fan zones, and doing other things like talking to the people who are in charge of attracting volunteers etc, so I've gained a lot of experience doing that.

uefa.com: What have you learned?

Bordinggaard: I've learned that we have to start early. To organise such a tournament at a high international level it's crucial that we start now even though we have two years ahead of us. In some ways it's only two years because we have to build up the knowledge in Denmark and on the sports side build up our own team so we have to start now.

uefa.com: Does the Danish Football Association already have a team in place?

Bordinggaard: Yes. In the coming months we'll also meet the host cities frequently and by then they have to have their key people on board too. All four host cities have attended at least three matches here, and we've brought a total of almost 80 people to Sweden. That will help with the preparation.

uefa.com: What does it mean to Denmark to host the next final round?

Bordinggaard: It's a huge challenge, and we're very proud. As our FA president [Allan Hansen] said, this is our greatest challenge ever. We feel other sports like handball, gymnastics and cycling are also proud as well that Denmark can host such a beautiful and big event; it means a lot to all sports fans.

uefa.com: When did you find out the bid was successful?

Bordinggaard: The bidding phase was a full-time job which took almost a year, and was quite new to us. We've hosted two UEFA Cup finals in Copenhagen but not really been involved in such a big tournament. On 11 December last year, UEFA gave me a call and said congratulations. That started a party in the Danish FA and the host cities; it was as a fantastic day.

uefa.com: Do you have the venues in place?

Bordinggaard: When we started bidding we'd decided which cities we'd like to host the event. The Danish Under-21 team has used Aalborg as a home ground for nearly two years and we've been very pleased with the support. The women's national team play regularly in Viborg and managed to get more than 10,000 spectators, so we knew we would like to have them on board. Aarhus has hosted the national team twice and in Herning there's a brand new stadium, and a very well-supported team [FC Midtjylland].

uefa.com: How will you get the crowds in?

Bordinggaard: To be honest I was impressed with the crowds in Sweden. It's not difficult getting people to watch the hosts, it's getting people to the other matches. The fact the [Swedish FA] have done this shows they've done a great job and we hope to be as good as them. In order to recreate the bright atmosphere in Denmark we're already focusing on the local clubs. There are 1,600 in Denmark, a lot of them in areas where the host cities are. If we have a good collaboration with them I hope we will fill the stadiums.

uefa.com: What has the public reaction been to winning the bid?

Bordinggaard: We were amazed after December when we announced it, there were a lot of people on the internet, Facebook etc saying "We hope to see England", "We hope to see Russia" and so on. These teams have never played in such a tournament in Denmark before so the interest is already huge. We hope the seven teams who qualify alongside Denmark will bring a lot of quality players and that's also one of the things we need to fill the stadiums.

uefa.com: Your brother is the coach of the U21 team ...

Bordinggaard: It's fantastic for both of us being involved. He is responsible for the Danish team, and me for the organisational team. We talk a lot about it and have done so for many months. I think our team in 2011 will be quite good. Four of the players have already made their debut in the senior national team so that shows the potential of some of these players already – it looks promising. Even though many of the players are young, many have played in the Danish Super League.

uefa.com: What will happen in the year ahead?

Bordinggaard: There's lot of things to do. It's important for us to have the organisation in place by early September at the latest so we can start working onwards. UEFA will visit in October so we have to have a lot of things to discuss and present, then it's just a case of paying a lot of visits to the host cities. We're lucky that we already have six home friendly matches lined up, in three of the host cities. That will give them further knowledge of hosting matches. We will try to raise the levels of security, media etc to give them an idea of what's expected in 2011.