Euro 2012 starts today

Today begins the final European Football Championship part, which is hosted by Ukraine and Poland.

This year’s European Football Championship, which is considered as the most prestigious European football competition at the national team level and the third in the world after the Summer Olympic Games and the World Cup will be the 14^th consecutive.

The first European Championship was held in 1960 and since then it is conducted every four year. 16 the best European teams (together with the tournament organizers country or countries) participate according to the selected to the final competition part results. 24 teams will participate in the European Football final tournament in 2016.

Ukraine and Poland won the right to host this year’s Championship in April, 2007. According to official data, Ukraine and Poland spent more money on the preparation for the tournament than all the previous host countries that is connected with the worse host cities infrastructure readiness.  

According to the experts Polish cities successfully carried out the preparation for the championship plan during 5 years before the Euro 2012 holding. Instead, Ukraine due to its political and economic difficulties was on the verge of the right to hold the tournament matches in particular, UEFA examined the options or even complete abandonment from the games in Ukrainian cities, or reduction the Ukrainian host cities from four to two.

It was finally decided that Euro 2012 will be held in four Polish and four Ukrainian cities at the UEFA Executive Committee meeting only in October, 2012. The matches will be held in Ukraine, in such cities as Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv and Donetsk, in Poland – in Warsaw, Poznan, Gdansk and Wroclaw. The opening match tournament will be held in Warsaw today, June 8. And the final tournament will be played on July 1 in Kyiv.

Euro 2012 drawing lots of final stage was held in Kyiv, December 2, 2011.

Results are the following:

– Group A includes the following combined teams of Poland, Greece, Russia and Czech; matches will be held in Warsaw and Wroclaw;

– Group B – the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Portugal; matches in Lviv and Kharkiv;

– Group C – Spain, Italy, Ireland, Croatia; matches in Gdansk and Poznan;

– Group D – Ukraine, Sweden, France, England; matches in Donetsk and Kyiv.

Ukraine considers the Euro 2012 holding as an important image project, whose implementation will bring the country to Europe. However, the political processes within the country, including the criminal cases initiation against the opposition leaders on the parliamentary elections eve are in the way of this. Many European politicians condemned the former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former Interior Minister Yurii Lutsenko and others verdicts and called them politically motivated. Some European political leaders claimed that they will be boycotting the Euro 2012 matches in Ukraine in the protest against the Ukrainian authorities’ attitude to the opposition.