The European Championship is an unmitigated success so far, with plenty of goals, no red cards and well-behaved fans filling stadia in Austria and Switzerland.

That was the message from UEFA on Wednesday after it released TV viewing figures, crowd numbers at fan zones and the corporate hospitality ticket sales after the first set of games at Euro 2008.

European football's governing body is just as happy with on-field performances.

After eight games played over four match days, there have been 16 goals with no red cards and only 24 yellows, including none in Spain's 4-1 win over Russia on Tuesday in Innsbruck.

William Gaillard, director of communications for UEFA and senior adviser to its president Michel Platini, is even pleased with the pre-match formalities.

"One thing that had caused a lot of dismay over the last few years with observers was the systematic whistling and booing of the opponent's national anthem," Gaillard said. "We're seeing now that the national anthems are respected by the fans of all teams. Not only that, but they're applauding the opponent's national anthem, so we can only praise teams for behaving well in this tournament."

"The players are also behaving. Very few yellow cards, no red cards — it's something we must rejoice in."

Exceeding expectations

UEFA media head Rob Faulkner believes his organization's campaign of showing respect for players and officials is obviously working.

"I suspect the referees are very happy, they've been fairly consistent and we haven't seen any real malice or problems on the pitch in the tournament," he said.

Euro 2008 tournament director Christian Mutschler said the TV figures in Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands and the two host countries had exceeded expectations, gaining audience shares of between 70 and 82 per cent, while more than 850,000 people have watched games at fan zones, where fans without tickets can watch games on giant screens in a party atmosphere.

UEFA is also happy with the corporate side, with 80 per cent of all hospitality tickets being sold and 17,380 clients attending the first eight matches.

Impressive TV ratings

Gaillard said TV ratings for Germany were especially impressive and predicted the Netherlands' 3-0 win over Italy on Monday will bring similar results. About 23.7 million people watched the Germans beat Poland 2-0 in Klagenfurt on Sunday for an audience share of 69.6 per cent.

"The figures for Germany are absolutely astounding," Gaillard said. "Never before at a Euro have we had this kind of figure, and I think probably the Dutch figure for the Netherlands-Italy game is probably an all-time high for Dutch television.

"I don't think it is possible to get more than 70 per cent of the population that is watching TV to be watching one program with so many channels."

One downside was the 157 people were detained on Sunday by police in the southern Austrian city of Klagenfurt, where the Germany-Poland game was held. Police said 144 Germans, 10 Poles, two Austrians and one Slovenian were held, and that 140 of the arrests were for shouting Nazi-like slogans.

"I know the president (Platini) had written to the Minister of the Interior of all 16 participating countries before the tournament, just asking them to apply the full force of the law against people who are known to disturb the football matches, the so-called hooligans," Gaillard said. "And we must say that up to now, the behavior of fans, the crowds inside and outside stadiums, have also been outstanding, apart from the very few individuals of no consequence.

"We had some individual issues in Klagenfurt, which were actually outside the fan zones, but there were no injuries and no damage to property."

One fan zone at Klagenfurt's fair grounds will be shut down completely, while booths at others have been forced to close due to limited support by locals. There have been reports that other booths in the city are threatening to go on strike because their sales expectations were down by up to 90 per cent.