EURO 2021

Michel Platini, the head of the European football body UEFA, has warned Euro 2012 co-hosts Ukraine and Poland to speed up their preparations. Neither Ukraine nor Poland has hosted a major championship before, and Platini has stressed his growing concerns over their progress. “We’ve had to wake them up a little and tell them it’s time to get going,” Platini told French radio France Info on Thursday. “The 2012 Euro will still be held (there), but we’ve told them in the nicest possible way to speed things up a bit.” […]

Ukraine and Poland would set up a coordination council for 2012 Euro football tournament, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has said. Yushchenko held a meeting with his Polish counterpart Lech Kaczynski in Ukraine Monday to discuss the issues pertaining to the organization of Euro 2012.

Poland and Ukraine today won the bid to host the UEFA EURO 2012 Soccer Championship. The decision by the UEFA Executive Committee came as a most welcome surprise for two nations currently mared by political crisis. Beating the odds against favourite contender Italy, UEFA in a seminal decision opted for development instead of profit. By this brave and strategic decision, UEFA clearly showed that soccer is a concern for all or Europe, and not merely a concern of mighty nations of the EU. Sport is politics. This has been evident […]

On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association published the ‘Brown Book’ – documentation of racist, xenophobic and homophobic crimes and acts of discrimination in Poland in the years 2020-2023. It also covers discriminatory behaviour at stadiums and racist incidents involving football hooligans. The long-time author of the ‘Brown Book’ was the late Marcin Kornak (1968-2014), founder of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association, social justice activist and poet. He was the mind behind social campaigns promoting respect and diversity, among them he […]

Robert Lewandowski has officially become an FC Barcelona player and will wear the club’s shirt bearing the logo of the United Nations’ main agency for refugees (UNHCR, Spanish: ACNUR) As a Barcelona player, Lewandowski will be able to join the fight for the rights of refugee children and youth from across the world. In mid-June, the Catalan club signed an agreement with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), according to which it will be allocating 400,000 euros a year to humanitarian activities in Colombia, Turkey, […]

The FIFA Football World Cup will kick off on 14 June.‎ The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has participated in several events preceding the big event. Co-founder of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association Rafal Pankowski was invited by the prestigious Cambridge Union debating society to speak at a debate on the forthcoming World Cup in Russia, including the challenges of racism and xenophobia‎, on 10 May. – ‘Should we boycott the World Cup in Russia?’ – asked the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ representative during the Cambridge debate. – ‘It would be a better idea to […]

Co-hosts are hoping Borussia Dortmund’s Lukasz Piszczek, Jakub Blaszczykowski and Robert Lewandowsk can reproduce their club success on the international stage It is a paradox of football that the hosts of a tournament can enjoy a low profile. Attention will, of course, soar when Poland take the field against Greece in the opening match of Euro 2012, but Franciszek Smuda’s side can be pleased that they have only provided meagre information for their opponents. The same can be said of the co-hosts Ukraine, yet it is Poland who could be […]

In opinion of Lorenzo Bernardi, Italians and Spaniards are the main favorites of European football championships. “It won’t be easy, but I think that my compatriots will be playing with Spaniards twice – in the group and after that … in the final match,” he said. Italians play in Group C (Gdańsk, Poznań) together with Croatia and Ireland. Bernardi is go-ing to watch the matches on TV and thinks that many Italian fans will come to see the tour-nament live. „I hope, that they will visit not only Poland, but […]

The favorites of the coming European football championships are Spaniards and Germans. The title’s defenders, who defeated the Germans four years ago, have a chance of about 34 per cent to win the whole tournament; that results from the analyze of bookmakers betting predictions Euro 2012 winner. Poland’s odds to be winner are much smaller, but as a compensation, our team can really count on advance to the next stage. Betting on Poland can bring you a fortune, because in case of White-and-Red victory, for every PLN bet on that […]

Poland coach Franciszek Smuda produced no surprises when he named his 23-man squad for Euro 2012 on Sunday. It was largely expected that Smuda would drop midfielder Tomasz Jodlowiec and striker Michal Kucharczyk, who had fared poorly in a friendly win against Latvia, as well as defender Kamil Glik from his provisional group of 26. “I would like to thank them because they gave it their best, they worked at full capacity and I hope they stay in contention for squads in the future,” Smuda told a news conference. On […]