Ukraine Hotel Deal for Euro 2012; Host Cities Mark Two-year Countdown

(WFI) The Ukrainian government is set to ink a deal to fast-track construction of 20 hotels to meet the accommodation needs of co-hosting the Euro 2012 championships.

Borys Kolesnikov, the deputy prime minister overseeing Euro 2012 preparations, said the cabinet will sign a memorandum with a hotel chain to build 30 hotels in Ukraine in three years - 20 before the tournament kicks off in two years time, according to Ukrainian media reports.

Kolesnikov also noted that the government was scrutinising a number of reserve options to get hotels built ahead of the championships, reported NRCU radio.

In Poland, acting president Bronislaw Komorowski has hailed the pace of construction work on the national stadium in Warsaw, which is slated to host the opening match of Euro 2012.

"I was very glad to see such gigantic progress which stands in contradiction to various pessimistic opinions constructed in Poland and outside that Poland will not manage to complete preparations for Euro 2012," Komorowaki was quoted in a Xinhua report

Komorowaki inspected the stadium yesterday and added: "The visit confirmed me in the conviction that the stadium will be the venue of the first match of Euro 2012."

Earlier this week, Poland's UEFA Euro 2012 tournament director Adam Olkowicz said a harsh winter and floods across the country had not affected venue and infrastructure preparations.

Poland is staging Euro 2012 matches in the cities of Warsaw, Wroclaw, Gdansk and Poznan. Ukraine's venues are Donetsk, Lviv, Kharkiv and Kiev.

"Construction works are being undertaken around the clock in three shifts to ensure that work keeps progressing on time," he told UEFA.com.

He said the next challenges for Poland were volunteering, confirmation of team bases and provision of UEFA family and guest accommodation. "We have to sign around 9,000 agreements which will create a legal basis for all the UEFA EURO 2012 related projects we are managing," he added.

The two-year countdown to Euro 2012 was marked yesterday with celebrations in Poland and Ukraine.

Kharkiv in Ukraine became the first of the eight Euro 2012 host cities to unveil its official logo and tournament flowerbed.

Ukraine capital Kiev, venue for the final, unveiled its own 2012 symbol and flowerbed, featuring the Euro 2012 flower emblem, in the heart of the city close to the Golden Gate.

Political dignitaries at the ceremony included vice premier Borys Kolesnikov. "Kiev has a huge football tradition. This city gave the world two great players, namely European footballers of the year Oleg Blokhin and Andriy Shevchenko," he told UEFA.com

"And I have no doubts that in two years we will stage a great European Championship, but we still have a lot to do."

In Wroclaw, Mayor Rafał Dutkiewicz unveiled the city's special Euro 2012 flowerbed. Three similar flowerbeds displaying the 2012 bloom logo are also on show in Warsaw.

Euro 2012 will feature 16 teams competing in a total of 31 matches in the month-long tournament.

The opening match is scheduled to take place in Warsaw on June 8 with the final at Kiev's Olympic Stadium on July 1. Around 1.4 million fans are expected to attend matches which will be broadcast live in more than 200 territories around the world.

Last week, UEFA approved Kiev as the city for the Euro 2012 final following months of concerns over stadium delays.

UEFA inspectors confirmed that Ukraine's new government had answered concerns following the two-month deadline set by UEFA president Michel Platini in April.

With reporting from WFI editor Mark Bisson (mark@worldfootballinsider.com)
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