On the second day of its meeting in Funchal, Madeira, the UEFA Executive Committee examined and discussed the state of infrastructure preparations in Ukraine in respect of the final tournament of the 2010-12 UEFA European Championship.

Selection of host cities

After careful consideration of the documents and guarantees submitted to UEFA by the Ukrainian Government and the cities of Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv and Lviv during the last couple of months, the infrastructure report prepared by the UEFA administration and after consultation with the host associations, the UEFA Executive Committee took the following decisions concerning the selection of host cities for UEFA EURO 2012:

• to confirm Kyiv as the venue of the final match of UEFA EURO 2012
• to confirm Donetsk and Lviv, and to appoint Kharkiv as host cities for group matches of UEFA EURO 2012

Work to do

The UEFA Executive Committee specifically noted, however, that there is still a huge amount of work that must be undertaken by all host cities and the Government of Ukraine to guarantee the full and proper implementation of the tournament requirements for UEFA EURO 2012 matches. To this effect, UEFA will continue to closely monitor the state of infrastructure and operational preparations in the two host countries.

Infrastructure requirements

"We knew it would be a difficult undertaking, and that it would be necessary to invest enormously in all of the infrastructure − sporting, hotels and transport," said UEFA President Michel Platini after the decision. "Poland and Ukraine have done this in spite of the devastating international financial and economic crisis, and Ukraine has been one of the countries most severely affected by this crisis.

Enormous efforts

"In September, we had to reserve our opinion on three of the four candidate cities in Ukraine − considerable progress needed to be made. I can say to you that today, thanks to the enormous efforts and great sacrifices undertaken by the Ukrainian government, we can finally give the green light to a symmetrical tournament with four cities in Poland − Warsaw, Wroclaw, Poznan and Gdansk − and four cities in Ukraine − Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv and Donetsk. The final will take place in Kyiv.

Confidence in the hosts

"The work is not finished," the UEFA President added. "UEFA experts will obviously continue to accompany the two countries towards the final tournament. The decision of the Executive Committee was unanimous. We have confidence in Poland and Ukraine."

Later decision

A decision regarding the match schedule for UEFA EURO 2012 and the appointment of the host cities staging the other knockout matches will be taken at a later stage.