Polish hopes for Euro 2012 wane
WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s Football Association appears to have conceded defeat in its bid to co-host the Euro 2012 championships with Ukraine after a UEFA report listed failings on stadiums, hotels and transport. The European game’s governing body is due to whittle the five bidders for the European Championships – Greece, Italy, Turkey and Croatia-Hungary are the others – down to a short list of three today. «If we fail on Tuesday it will be no reason to pull our hair out. We will try again in 2016 [and] we need to remember this was only our first attempt,» association (PZPN) chief Michal Listkiewicz told daily Gazeta Wyborcza. «It is not a failure. Our success was in submitting the paperwork on time.» In its report on the first stage of bidding, UEFA said both Poland and Ukraine were unlikely to meet its requirements for hotel accommodation and training facilities for teams. It also listed shortcomings in the planned stadiums as well the large traveling distances likely to be involved for fans on the two countries’ minimal highway networks. «Even UEFA chief Lennart Johansson has had the chance to personally evaluate the state of our roads,» said PZPN chief Listkiewicz. «He took a car from Warsaw to Kutno [in Lithuania] and became badly ill. Just as we won’t change the fact that Gdansk to Donetsk [in Ukraine] is 1,900 kilometers, so we are not hiding that Poland has no motorways.»
