Euro 2012 co-hosts make progress

WARSAW, POLAND — Poland and Ukraine have earned the endorsement of soccer’s officials -- again -- for the 2012 European Championship after months of speculation that they’d lose the tournament.

Recent visits to host cities, however, reveal the giant task that lies ahead.

The jubilation that erupted in Poland and Ukraine after the Union of European Football Associations’ decision in April 2007 to award them European soccer’s showcase event turned to fear last year as false starts on the construction of stadiums, roads, airports and hotels in both countries fueled speculation UEFA could dump the eastern Europeans and move the tournament to a backup host -- possibly Italy, Germany or Scotland.

Those concerns have subsided following a successful meeting with UEFA president Michel Platini in December. The former French star came out of the session saying he has “full confidence in Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine.”

Proving Platini right won’t be easy.

While some progress has been made, recent visits by Associated Press reporters to five of the eight planned host cities indicate both nations have a long slog ahead of them.

With 31/2 years to go, Ukraine decidedly has the tougher task, a job made all the more difficult by rampant corruption, poor management and endless political turmoil.

Preparations in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, nestled in rolling hills about 45 miles from the Polish border, lag the furthest behind.

A crumbling, one-lane road riddled with potholes runs from the border to Lviv, winding though towns and villages along the way. The city’s airport dates from the late 1950s. The main waiting lounge is no larger than a tennis court and doesn’t have a bathroom.

Work has begun, however, on a new 33,000-seat stadium near the city’s southern bypass that provides easy access to the main road east to Kiev.

Preparations are more advanced in Ukraine’s three other host cities -- Kiev, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk -- although the trio are all grappling with problems, too.

In the capital Kiev, after a nearly yearlong delay, work has finally begun on a $260 million overhaul of the Olympic Stadium, which is slated to be finished in 2010 and opened in 2011. The arena is to host the tournament final, and UEFA has warned without a renovated stadium, Ukraine will not co-host Euro 2012.

Donetsk already boasts a brand new stadium built by the owner of a local club, while Dnipropetrovsk should finish its stadium in the coming months.

Yet everywhere Ukraine’s infrastructure -- including airports, roads and hotels -- is badly in need of an upgrade.

The country has to add or modernize runways and build new terminals in all of the host cities. Construction work is already under way at Kiev’s two airports and in Donetsk, but the Lviv landing strip and terminal are still only in the planning stages.

The country also has vowed to upgrade thousands of miles of dilapidated roads. Outside the main cities, they are often little more than single-lane ribbons, cracked and crumbling.

Ukraine’s underdeveloped hotel system is still dominated by shabby and expensive Soviet-era hotels, few of which currently accept credit cards.

Deputy Prime Minister Ivan Vasyunyk, who is in charge of the Euro 2012 preparations, said the country has to build and renovate a total of 300 hotels, about 100 of which are still being designed. But the former head of Ukraine’s organizing committee, Yevhen Chervonenko, said that construction of 80 percent of the hotels that need to be built have been frozen due to the economic crisis.

Ukrainian officials estimate the entire project will cost around $30 billion -- a third coming from state coffers and the rest from private investors. But the world’s financial turmoil has devastated Ukraine’s economy, raising concerns the country may not be able to raise the necessary funds. Ukraine’s currency, the hryvna, has lost about 40 percent of its value since September.