Poland awaits UEFA decision on Euro sites

Grzegorz Lato, president of the Polish Football Federation (PZPN), said Tuesday he expects UEFA to announce the final sites for the 2012 European Championship as planned on Wednesday.

The tournament will be co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine, and Lato rejected the notion that UEFA could delay an announcement on the Ukrainian sites due to delays in the country’s preparations.

“UEFA said that the final decision would be taken in Bucharest and because they’re a respected organisation, I expect this decision on Wednesday,” Lato told AFP on the first day of a two-day meeting of UEFA’s executive committee in the Romanian capital.

Lato said “it would be unfair on Poland” to delay the decision in order to give Ukraine an ultimatum to get their sites in order, as sources close to the project had suggested might happen.

Regarding the distribution of eight sites between the two countries, Lato said that the ideal was “to push for a 4+4 situation”, while assuring that six Polish towns were ready to host matches.

Lato said the possibility of six sites being allocated to Poland and just two to Ukraine was a scenario produced by “the imaginations of journalists”.

Poland has prepared six sites capable of hosting the event – in Warsaw, Poznan, Wroclaw, Krakow, Gdansk and Chorzow – but UEFA president Michel Platini said on a visit in April that it was “not possible” to nominate six Polish sites.