Smoking will be banned in the technical areas at all UEFA competitions from the start of the 2004-05 soccer season, a meeting of UEFA's executive committee decided on Thursday.

This signals a challenge to some of European soccer's most celebrated smoking coaches, including Italian Marcello Lippi of Juventus, who has often been seen on the touchline with a cigar during Champions League matches, to find a way of surviving 90 minutes of tension without lighting up.

The Argentine Hector Cuper, formerly with Valencia, who was dismissed recently by Inter Milan, is another well-known coach who relies on puffing on a cigarette or cigar to survive.

The ban was discussed during the committee's two-day meeting on Wednesday and Thursday. The meeting concluded on Thursday morning.

The committee took the proposal to ban smoking from the technical development committee which said that smoking by coaches in the technical area of the pitch is bad for the image of the sport and gave the wrong example when it came to health considerations.

The executive committee was chaired by UEFA's first vice-president Senes Erzik because of president Lennart Johansson's absence due to ill-health and it also agreed to appoint Germany to host the European under-21's final tournament in 2004 and to appoint Poland as hosts of the under-19's finals in 2006.

The supporters of Celtic were nominated for the 2003 FIFA Fair Play award for their behaviour throughout their run to the UEFA Cup final last season -- and particularly their behaviour at the final in Seville when their team lost to Porto.

The committee also decided to set up a new referees consultative body to improve UEFA's relationship with the officials.