THE European Championship is sold out.

Euro 2008 chief operating officer Martin Kallen said all 1.05million tickets for the 31-match tournament in Austria and Switzerland that starts on Saturday have been sold, and that anyone buying a ticket from now is doing so illegally.

"All tickets have been sold, not one single one left - and haven't been so for a while," Kallen said. "We are obviously trying to stop tickets from being sold on the black market. But all tickets now being sold are black-market tickets."

Euro 2008 organisers said 38% of the tickets went to national football federations, 33% to the general public, 14% to sponsors and TV partners, with the remaining 15% broken up between hospitality, Uefa members and host city and stadium owner factions.

A ticket for the June 29 final at Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna will cost between £125 and £435, with all other matches selling from £35 to £85.

Switzerland, Austria and Germany represent a combined 75% of all 8.7million individual ticket requests, while Spain, France, Italy, Poland and Holland were at the other end of the scale from between one and four per cent each.

Austria (101) and Switzerland (48) are easily the lowest ranked teams by Fifa in the tournament but Kallen is not concerned that the event will lack atmosphere if the two hosts are knocked out in the first round.

"It goes without saying that the home teams add to the euphoria if they qualify, but in both countries there are lots of immigrant groups who live abroad," Kallen said. "There are large groups of Croatians and Germans in Austria and Croatians and Spanish in Switzerland."

Meanwhile, the Swiss army has begun its security operation for the Championships with 10,000 military personnel supporting police.