(AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

UEFA turns attention to Euro 2012 co-hosts Poland, Ukraine amid worries over preparations

By RYAN LUCAS,

WARSAW, Poland (AP) With Euro 2008 come and gone, UEFA now turns its attention to Poland and Ukraine amid speculation that the Eastern European co-hosts could lose the 2012 tournament if construction delays worsen.

UEFA president Michel Platini is to lead an investigative mission to Warsaw on Wednesday - and to Kiev a day later - to assess the progress Poland and Ukraine have made in their preparations to stage European soccer's showcase competition. The 12-man delegation is slated to meet with presidents and top-ranking government and soccer officials from both countries on the two-day trip.

The visit comes at a key moment for the two countries as they seek to brush aside fears that they are unable to bridge glaring gaps in sports and public infrastructure, including stadiums, roads, airports and hotels.

In April last year, Poland and Ukraine were awarded the championships ahead of a bid from Italy and a joint candidacy from Croatia and Hungary. The decision was met with jubilation in both countries and was seen as a chance to demonstrate that the two former communist states have reinvented themselves as modern, efficient Western nations capable of hosting such a high-profile event.

But problems across the board in both countries have fueled speculation that UEFA holds plans for a backup host - possibly Italy, Germany, or Scotland.

However, Platini told reporters at the weekend in Vienna that "there is no backup plan" right now, but warned that UEFA could find a new host if a new national stadium planned for Warsaw and a redeveloped Stalinist-era Olympic stadium in Kiev are not ready in time.

"That would be the only decision to make us decide not to have the tournament in Poland and Ukraine," Platini said in Vienna, Austria. "If no stadiums, no tournament."

Polish and Ukrainian officials have scrambled to ease UEFA concerns and, while admitting the deadlines are tight, give assurances that everything will be ready on time.

"Poland is at a very good level in its preparations," said Marcin Herra, the president of Poland's organizing committee.

"Poland has the money for the necessary investments, it knows what it has to do, and it now has a very detailed plan," Herra said. "Everything is now going according to plan or is even a couple of weeks ahead of schedule."

Warsaw is to stage the opening match in a new 55,000-seat national stadium on the banks of the Vistula River. Workers have started tearing down the crumbling 10th-Anniversary Stadium that stands on the site, and preliminary construction on the new stadium is slated to begin in early 2009 and finish in 2011.

Two other Polish stadiums - in Wroclaw and Gdansk - must also be built from the ground up. Architects are finishing off the final designs on those arenas, Herra said, and construction crews should break ground on them in early 2009.

Meanwhile, expansion work to increase capacity of the Municipal Stadium in Poznan to 45,000 is well underway.

But the country still faces major problems with transportation infrastructure. Poland's crumbling roadways fall far short of the autobahns in Austria and Switzerland that allowed fans to zip from one host city to another, and Poland's government continues to drag its feet on upgrading existing roads and building badly needed new ones.

In Ukraine, the main hurdle in preparations remains the renovation of Kiev's 80,000-seat Olympic stadium, which was opened in the late 1940s and is to host the Euro 2012 final.

Last week, the Ukrainian government dismissed a Taiwanese firm, which had a won a tender to reconstruct the stadium, citing legal problems.

Authorities are now scrambling to find a replacement, but experts say a new company may not be able to complete the necessary stadium renovations in time. That task is further complicated by a shopping center under construction nearby that was ordered to be torn down by June because it could impinge on access to the stadium. The center remains untouched.

Political squabbling between Ukraine's president and prime minister, who are seen as trying to undermine each other ahead of the 2010 presidential elections, has further hampered preparations.

Last week, the chairman of Ukraine's organizing committee, Evhen Chervonenko, accused the government of refusing necessary funding for the tournament and of failing to do everything possible to avoid the "major international embarrassment" that would ensue if Ukraine lost its right to be co-host.

Despite the setbacks, Chervonenko has sought to put a positive spin on things.

"We are in such a stage of preparations that there are no reasons to worry," Chervonenko told the Associated Press in an interview. "The Euro project is a project of the Ukrainian people and it will be completed."

Associated Press writers Olga Bondaruk and Maria Danilova contributed to this report from Kiev, Ukraine.

Updated September 2, 2008