Kiev- Ukrainian officials were moving quickly on Thursday to begin preparations to co-host the Euro 2012 football championships. "I am not particularly joyful, there is so much to do," Hryhory Surkis, head of the Football Federation of Ukraine, told Kommanda newspaper.
"What we need more than anything else is to realize the massive amount of work we have ahead of us," he said.
The UEFA executive council on Wednesday awarded hosting rights to Poland and Ukraine for the tournament, rejecting an Italian bid, and a joint offer from Croatia and Hungary.
Ukraine's parliament on Thursday unanimously passed a wide-ranging bill, called by MPs "The Euro 2012 Law", setting out a host of legal changes seen as necessary to prepare for the tournament.
The legislation gave official import tax breaks on sports goods, construction materials, and communications equipment - among other items - expected to be brought into the country for the championship.
The bill also made illegal, and stipulated fines and even jail time, for misuse of the UEFA label. Copyright infringement is rampant in Ukraine, despite repeated government commitments to control the problem.
Other articles of the law eased visa and currency import restrictions on tourists, and tightened penalties for ticket falsification, for the duration of the tournament.
Kiev mayor Leonid Chernovitsky was quick off the mark as well, announcing the Ukrainian capital intended to build from the ground up a world-class stadium for 200 million euros.
The final game of Euro 2012 is scheduled in Kiev, whose current stadium dates back to the Soviet Union and is in poor repair.
Construction of a 50,000-seater stadium in eastern Donetsk, one of the four cities scheduled to hold games, is well under way and could be complete in 2009. A 30,000-seater modern stadium in Dnipropetrovsk was even further along, and would be operation by the end of 2007, Sehodnia newspaper reported.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on a Channel Five television interview predicted the infrastructure investment cost to Ukraine to hold its share of the tournament would be between three and five million dollars.
Mykola Rudolkovsky, Ukraine Transport Minister, was less optimistic, estimating the cost at improving just the country's roads to quality sufficient for tens of thousands of foreign motor tourists at as much as 17 billion dollars.
Source: www.earthtimes.org
