2008 European Sevens Championship
The 2008 European Sevens Championship was a rugby sevens competition, with the final held in Hanover, Germany. It was the seventh edition of the European Sevens championship and also functioned as a qualifying tournament for the 2009 Rugby World Cup Sevens. The event was organised by rugby's European governing body, the FIRA – Association of European Rugby (FIRA-AER). Outcome. The finals tournament held in Hanover, Germany on 12 and 13 July 2008, as well as being the European Sevens Championship, functioned as a qualifying tournament for the world cup. England, France and Scotland had already  qualified through their past performance. The five best nations out of the twelve participating ones qualified for the Dubai tournament. Teams finished in the following order: Bid. On 16 June 2007, the FIRA congress in Monaco decided to award the finals tournament to Hanover, beating bids from Russia, Greece and Bosnia-Herzegovina in the process. Tournament history. From 2002, FIRA, the governing body of European rugby, has been organising an annual European Sevens Championship tournament. A number of qualifying tournaments lead up to a finals tournament, which functions as the European championship and, in 2008, also as the qualifying stage  for the Sevens World Cup. The first European Championship was held in 2002 in Heidelberg, Germany, and was won by Portugal, the team that won every championship since except 2007, when Russia won. The next year, the tournament was again held in Heidelberg and in 2004, Palma de Mallorca, Spain was the host. From 2005 to 2007, Moscow was the host of the tournament. Hanover held the tournament for the first time in 2008 and will do so again in 2009. Tournament. Stadium. The finals tournament was held at the AWD-Arena in Hanover, home ground of the football club  Hannover 96. The stadium holds 50.000 spectators, 43,000 of them on seats, the rest standing. The tournament was seen by over 30,000 spectators, a good turn out in a country like Germany, where rugby is not a mainstream sport. After selling more than 35,000 tickets in advance, mostly within Germany, the organisers were forced to open up the upper tier of the stadium to meet demand. Qualifying. Twelve teams qualified through the seven qualifying tournaments, held at the following locations: Group stage. The tournament was divided into a group and a finals stage. In the group stage, two groups of  six teams were drawn. Within each group, each team played each other once. The top two teams went to the Cup stage of the tournament while the third and fourth placed team qualified for the Plate stage. Five and six went to the Bowl finals. Finals. Three separate rounds of finals were held, Bowl, the lowest, Plate and Cup. The semi final winners of each group went on to the final while the losers played each other. All teams from the Cup stage were qualified for the next sevens world cup and also the Plate winner. Bowl. Winner: Russia Plate . Winner: Italy "(qualified for the 2009 Sevens world cup)" Cup. Winner: Portugal "(all four teams qualified for the 2009 Sevens world cup)" Teams. Belgium. Head coach: Neil Massinon Manager: Thierry Massinon Georgia. Head coach: Kakhaber Alania Germany. Head coach: Lofty Stevenson Ireland. Head coach: Jon Skurr Italy. Head coach: Poland. Head coach: Portugal. Head coach: Tomaz Morais Romania. Head coach: Russia. Head coach: Claude Saurel Spain. Head coach: José Ignacio Inchausti Ukraine. Head coach: Michel Bishop Wales. Head coach: Gareth Baber