Ukraine to Co-Host Euro 2012 Soccer Championship

April 25, 2007

Ukraine has won the bid to host the biggest soccer championship in Europe in 2012 along with neighboring Poland. This is akin to hosting the Olympic games, as the soccer championship will last for several weeks and will attract hundreds of thousands of fans to Ukraine's football fields (outside of the U.S. they say "football" instead of "soccer").

This is the first time the European football championship has been held in the (now former) Eastern Bloc since Yugoslavia in 1976. The event will be a chance for Ukraine to gain much-needed attention from citizens of European countries, whose awareness of Ukraine was extremely limited until the Orange Revolution.

The championship will involve matches at a number of cities around Ukraine and Poland. All stadiums will undergo extensive renovation, and many of them are under construction or will be built from ground zero during the coming five years.

In addition, the Ukrainian government and leading business figures have aggressive plans for developing the country's infrastructure by 2012. The soccer championship has provided a convenient "deadline" to finally take decisive action and build the roads, hotels, and tourism infrastructure that have been painfully absent in recent years.

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