EURO 2021

CNN’s new series i-List takes you to a different country each month. In June, we visit Poland focusing on changes shaping the country’s economy, culture and its social fabric. Warsaw, Poland (CNN) — Football fever is already gripping Poland ahead of co-hosting the European Championships in 2012. Despite the national team’s absence from the World Cup in South Africa, the country’s sports fields are packed with children and amateur footballers getting into the mood. When Poland and Ukraine host Euro 2012, they will be the first Eastern European countries to […]

On April 18, 2007, the head of UEFA, Michel Platini mentioned Poland and Ukraine as the hosts of the European Championships in football to be held in 2012. Below we present the current status of works concerning major facilities being prepared for Euro 2012. We mean stadiums. Three years ago euphoria broke out in Poland when Michel Platini took out from an envelope a card with the words “Poland and Ukraine.” The joy in Poland, resulting from granting such a prestigious event did quickly turned into fear. Questions “whether Poland […]

Platini has made it clear that UEFA’s decision to award Euro 2012 to Poland and Ukraine was far from a safe bet… The focus of the football world is at the African Nations Cup at the moment and will be shifted to the 2010 World Cup come June, but UEFA president Michel Platini is already thinking about Euro 2012. The tournament will be co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine, and both nations have been criticised more than once for the slow progress in infrastructure improvements and stadium construction projects.

The European Football Union announced on Wednesday a division into six baskets before eliminations of the 2012 European Championships in Poland and Ukraine. The ceremony will be held on 7 February 2010 in the Congress Hall in Warsaw. UEFA made the division based on the team ranking, which incorporates the results in qualifications and tournaments of the World Cup finals in 2006 and ME 2008, as well as eliminations for next year’s World Cup in South Africa. In the first basket, which is made up of nine top teams, the […]

Poland have appointed local Franciszek Smuda as coach in place of sacked Dutchman Leo Beenhakker. Having missed out on a World Cup berth and qualifying automatically as hosts for Euro 2012, Smuda’s first competitive game is more than two and a half years away. Smuda, who is the national team’s 44th coach, has a contract until the end of the European Championship in which Poland are guaranteed an automatic place as co-hosts with Ukraine. Smuda replaces temporary coach Stefan Majewski, whose team lost the last two games of the 2010 […]

Where even soccer is politics, infrastructure improvements have fallen behind. KIEV — In Ukraine, soccer is simply politics pursued through other means. The vicious and sometimes petty power struggle at the highest reaches of the country’s government has spilled over to its sports fields. Two years ago, UEFA, Europe’s governing soccer body, awarded Ukraine and its Slavic neighbor Poland the prestigious designation as co-hosts of the European soccer championships in 2012. The European championship, held every four years, is the largest international soccer tournament after the World Cup and one […]

Ukraine’s preparations to co-host the European Football Championship in 2012 have fallen badly behind schedule. Uefa, Europe’s football governing body, has given the country until 30 November to show significant improvement, or face losing most of the matches to the co-hosts, Poland. In the eastern city of Donetsk, people are riding high on a tide of football fever. In May their team, Shakhtar, won the Uefa cup. Thousands came out onto the streets to celebrate and welcome the players home. The crowd seemed oblivious to the brooding presence of a […]

The Ukrainian cities of Kiev and Donetsk are guaranteed to be chosen as hosts for the 2012 European soccer championship and three others discover on Wednesday if they will join them. UEFA’s Executive Committee meets in Bucharest this week to chose the venues for the tournament being co-hosted by Ukraine and Poland. The cities of Lviv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Odessa all hope to be chosen although the latter two are on Ukraine’s reserve list of venues. Odessa, a port and resort town on the Black Sea Coast, is unlikely to […]

Uefa will announce the list of host cities for Euro 2012 next week and everyone wants to keep hold of their slice of the financial pie. These are a big few days for Ukrainian football. On Thursday, they will find out who will be their first representatives in a European final for 23 years, as Shakhtar Donetsk host Dynamo Kyiv in the second leg of their Uefa Cup semi-final, a 1-1 first-leg draw having seemingly handed Shakhtar the initiative, even if they were second best for much of the game. […]

UEFA President Michel Platini has urged the international community on Thursday to help Poland and Ukraine in their preparations for the Euro 2012. Poland and Ukraine need support of international community – quotes the National News Agency of Ukraine “Ukrinform”. In the last few months German and Italian media speculated about taking the preparation of EURO 2012 away from Poland and Ukraine. According to western press former communist countries will not manage such a huge project. Italians, who lost the battle to organize this event, were first to criticize. Platini, […]