Watch Euro 2012 Live Online
Watch UEFA European football championships live online . Never miss a game again – all Euro 2012 matches live on your PC.
The UEFA Euro 2012 , commonly referred to as Euro 2012 , will be the 14th European Championship for national football teams sanctioned by UEFA . Poland and Ukraine will be the host nations of the final tournament, scheduled for the summer of 2012, following the election of their joint-bid by UEFA’s Executive Committee, on April 18, 2007, in Cardiff, Wales . This bid defeated the other shortlisted bids from Italy and Croatia / Hungary, becoming the third successful joint-bid for the European Championship, after those of Belgium / Netherlands , for Euro 2000, and Austria / Switzerland for Euro 2008.
The Polish-Ukrainian hosting is seen as a way of shifting the focus towards regions and nations of central and eastern Europe, whose population demonstrates a strong feeling for football, but are less developed in terms of the quality of the local leagues and football infrastructure, when compared with western Europe. Apart from Chorzów, Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk , the host cities are all popular tourist destinations. However, it is unclear if they have sufficient experience in accommodating large numbers of visitors for extended stays, and the existing transportation infrastructure within and between both countries is inadequate to allow a rapid flow of people between the venues. In order to improve this situation, the bid plans the expansion and modernization of roads and highways. The obligatory improvement of the football infrastructure includes the building of the new Shakhtar Stadium in Donetsk, which fits the 5-star UEFA criteria, and the near-completed 31,000-seat Dnipro Stadium in Dnipropetrovsk .