Russia has today given up on the idea of bidding for the Euro 2008 soccer championship.
"We decided not to go ahead with the application," said executive director of the Russian Football Union (RFU) Alexander Tukmanov.
"There are a number of conditions for those who want to stage such a complex tournament, the main one is government guarantees. And we don't have that at the moment".
Last week, RFU chief Vyacheslav Koloskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin had to give his approval for the bid to go ahead.
"We were waiting to meet with the president [Putin], but it hasn't come about yet," Tukmanov said.
Denmark/Sweden/Finland and Norway are expected to bid as are Hungary, Switzerland/Austria, Greece/Turkey and Scotland.
Meanwhile, Bosnia and Croatia sent UEFA a preliminary joint bid to stage the European championships in 2008 today.
They agreed the text of the preliminary bid at a meeting in Sarajevo on Friday, Bosnian FA secretary-general Munib Usanovic said today.
Usanovic said it contained no technical details because UEFA would send conditions for staging the competition to all potential organisers by mid-December.
Croatia had agreed to stage a joint bid for Euro 2008 with Hungary but the plans fell through in August, and Hungary decided to proceed on its own.