Soccer: Poland and Ukraine host Euro 2012 [Confirmed!]

BBC SPORT ^ | 2007/04/18 | BBC

[wolf78]

Poland and Ukraine host Euro 2012

Poland and Ukraine have been chosen to host the 2012 European Championships.

Italy were widely expected to win the Uefa vote in Cardiff, with another joint bid from Croatia and Hungary also in the running.

However, Italy's bid was overshadowed by last season's referee corruption scandal and their on-going problems with football-related crowd trouble.

It will be the first time that either Poland or Ukraine have hosted a major football championship.

"Finally, the big event is going to the countries which have had no opportunities to improve football," said Polish Football Association chairman Michal Listkiewicz.

"This big tournament will be a milestone in the common history of two Slavic nations."

Poland and Ukraine's bid team staged an impressive presentation on Tuesday, featuring Chelsea striker Andriy Shevchenko, Liverpool keeper Jerzy Dudek as well as boxer Vitali Klitschko, former Olympic champion Sergei Bubka and Ukraine president Victor Yushchenko.

[dfwgator]

How are things looking for them qualifying for 2008? They seem to have turned things around with the Dutch coach.

[Lukasz]

Stadium Projects

http://www.dziennik.pl/Default.aspx?TabId=14&ShowArticleId=39822

[dfwgator]

Awesome. I’ve long wanted to travel to Poland, and this could be an excellent excuse to make the trip.

[dfwgator]

I remember they lost the game to Finland early on, but wow they’ve rebounded nicely.

[wolf78]

ESPN Soccernet has quite a good Euro 2008 coverage, including complete qualification tables:

Euro 2008 @ Soccernet

[Teacher317]

Poland is on a real roll lately. Maybe France, Italy and Germany will wake up soon and realize that they are not Europe’s overlords anymore.

[tetuhe1898]

Nice pictures. No doubt that Poland will be ready to host Euro2012, but Ukraine? It’s so unpredictable and unstable country.

[macel]

Fans react to the UEFA decision.

Seeing the pictures you could think we've won the world cup ;)

[Grzegorz 246]

“That’s 40 billion Euros G I V E N to Poland for free”

BS.

[Grzegorz 246]

“I was repeating what TVN was telling”

I heard that too, but that’s not true of course.

[Lukasz]

Grzg, Some sources are never wrong and TVN is among them, so shut up!

vox, as usual you are TVN's mouthpiece in this forum!

[Lukasz]

I read that French and German delegates were among those four out of twelve who voted for Italy, Weimar triangle works us usual! :)

[wolf78]

Weimar triangle works us usual! :)

Well, at least Germany doesn't support Turkey's EU bid, like Poland does. Well, I guess killing Christians is OK, as long as it's protestants.

But joking aside: There's nothing more corrupt than sports federations like FIFA or the IOC. So I'd better keep my mouth shut ;).

[Lukasz]

Are you mad? Since when EU’s neo-communism is about Christianity? :)

I think that UN is definitely more corrupt.

[wolf78]

I think that UN is definitely more corrupt.

Less efficient definitely, but more corrupt than the IOC, where votes can be bought so easily? I wouldn't say that the UN is corrupt per se, it's rather that it's made up for the most part of corrupt regimes. But hey, isn't that the mission of the UN anyway: Ensuring peace by inaction?

I actually liked the suggestion that only democracies should be allowed to have a vote at the UN, downgrading dictatorships to spectator status.

But then again I've always said that Germany should leave the UN ASAP and let others pay for it. An organisation that grants France instead of Germany a permanent seat in the security council is just not worth the trouble ;).