After the conclusion of the 2010 A-pool European Championships, EFAF president Robert Huber thanked the EFAF members and officials involved with the tournament and especially the members of the Organizing Committee.

The tournament at Frankfurt, Wetzlar and Wiesbaden attracted more than 25,000 visitors to its nine games with attendance figures that outnumbered any European American Football tournament in the past by a large margin. The final game of EC 2010 set a new attendance record for EC finals itself, eliminating a 19-year-old record mark. Like the opening game and the Bronze medal game, the Gold Medal game was staged at Frankfurt's Commerzbank Arena, the first time games of an EFAF tournament for national teams were played at an elite venue which was previously used for FIFA World Cup.

Huber states that "EFAF reached the next level in our federation history."

This does not only refer to attendance figures, although obviously the public is focused on such numbers and especially the short-term comparison to the 2005 A-pool tournament (4,100 visitors to 4 games) and the tournaments since the late 90's are impressive. But also this year's EC final game was aired live on Eurosport 2 throughout Europe for the first time ever and even with the expansion from four to six teams in the final A-pool tournament again noticeable progress in the level of play of all the teams was visible.

"We saw a lot of exciting and close games," said Huber who was just as delighted as anyone else with the tournament.

For the EFAF Board of Directors, which invented the pooling system for the European Championships about a decade ago, another point was of great interest:

"The success of Austria showed that a federation can start at the C-level and advance to a Bronze medal," Huber explains. "With Austria's success the pooling system in only its second cycle definitely proved to be an appropriate system to determine the true champion of Europe."

In the end, the host country was in the final game for the third time in a row. Germany claimed the European Championship, but was not the only nation with reasons to celebrate. France won its first-ever medal on the senior level and Austria not only had the Germans at the brink of a loss I the opening game but subsequently went on to win its first medal since 1995.

Both teams success in the senior level came as no surprise as the French had won the Junior Championships in 2004 and 2006 and the Austria club teams won the Eurobowl six consecutive times from 2004-2009.

All three medal-winners will now head to the upcoming IFAF Senior World Championship in Austria and may form a stronger set of EFAF teams than ever before.

"We wish Germany, France and Austria all the best to represent the European colors at the upcoming Senior World Championships," said Huber. "And we wish hosting Austria to make the event an even greater success than this year's European Championship."