Preparing for Euro 2012

A day after Poland and Ukraine scored a shock win over Italy and fellow joint bidders Hungary and Croatia in the race to clinch the major soccer tournament -- which takes place every four years -- the enormity of the task facing the two host nations was beginning to sink in.

They will need nothing short of a Herculean construction and investor drive to build stadium, hotels and other infrastructure. In addition, security worries, hooliganism and corruption remain nagging problems.

Organizers and politicians, however, insist they will roll up their sleeves in order to ensure the success of the soccer championships.

Poland tries to calm jitters

In the lead up to Wednesday's decision by European soccer's governing body, UEFA, at a meeting in Cardiff, the Polish-Ukrainian bidders tried to calm jitters.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski who traveled to the Welsh capital with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko to make an 11th-hour pitch for their bid, said there was much work to be done.

"We must not forget the enormity of the task of organizing Euro 2012, but that is also excellent news for Poland," Kaczynski said. "There will be new stadiums built in Warsaw, Gdansk, Wroclaw and Poznan. That can only be seen in a positive light," he added.

"Five years is long enough and I am sure that with the mobilization and determination of the local authorities and the people, we will succeed."

It will be the first time that either Poland or Ukraine will host a major soccer championship. It's the third major sporting event, following the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 and the soccer World Cup in South Africa in 2010, to break away from the traditional grounds of Western Europe and the Americas.

Infrastructure in need of massive overhaul

Polish authorities said last week that around 26 billion euros ($35 billion), including EU financing, have been earmarked to upgrade infrastructure.

Fans will need every bit of it. Anyone wanting to travel by road from Gdansk in northern Poland to Donetsk, a host city in eastern Ukraine, has to traverse 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles). The 22-hour car or bus trip -- not counting the lengthy wait at the Polish-Ukrainian border -- is mostly on single lane roads. Only 23 kilometers (14 miles) of the trip is on motorway.

Despite receiving vast EU funding since the fall of communism in 1989 and becoming a member of the bloc in 2004, Poland still hasn't built a basic motorway network connecting its major cities.

The situation is worse in Ukraine. There, train travel is hardly better: it currently takes 43 hours, at best, to get from Gdansk to Donetsk.

Lack of investment means it is too dangerous to use high speed trains on the aging tracks.

While booming low-cost airlines carry hundreds of thousands of Poles between their homes and western Europe each year, there are still no cheap links between Ukraine and Poland.

Outside major cities, particularly in Ukraine, good hotels are hard to come by -- or at least in sufficient numbers to cater to tens of thousands of fans, journalists and soccer officials.

Hooliganism, right wing crimes raise concerns

Polish soccer is also blighted by hooliganism. Fears that Polish fans would cause trouble at last year's World Cup in neighboring Germany led to a massive police operation in both countries, although in the end the hooligans stayed away.

In addition, Polish soccer's image has been dented by corruption. A two-year-old match-fixing scandal has led to more than 60 arrests, including several referees, a member of the Polish Soccer Association (PZPN) leadership and a string of club officials.

On Thursday, Polish Sports Minister Tomasz Lipiec vowed to make Polish soccer graft-free by the time of the Euro 2012.

"We want to sort this problem out completely by 2012. I'm convinced that we will manage it even earlier," Lipiec said. "The championships must take place in an atmosphere of fair play."

Ukraine will also have to do more to improve security for foreign fans. Foreign embassies regularly warn their citizens about the risk of attacks by skinheads in the country. Poland, too, has a flourishing far-right scene.

"Good news for Ukrainians"

Despite the huge problems, Kiev remains confident that it can manage to surmount most challenges. Indeed, there are signs that the country is already gearing up to tackle the gargantuan task.

Although Kiev is currently locked in political crisis pitting supporters of the president and prime minister against each other, the two sides are united about Euro 2012.

Four Ukrainian cities selected as venues have already started preparations including upgrading their existing soccer facilities.

And the Kiev mayor's office has said the capital would completely renovate its 86,000-seat Olympic stadium.

In the west of the country, Lviv city authorities have said they will renovate the city's 28,000-seat stadium and increase its capacity.

Ukraine's reigning champions, Shakhtar Donetsk, are currently building a new 50,000-seat ground, while Dnepropetrovsk, who finished sixth last season, had also began the construction of a new arena in their town.

Ukraine's sports minister, Viktor Korzh, said major investors were ready to step in alongside the authorities.

"There are serious investors, who are ready to invest up to 37 billion hryvnias (about 5.7 billion euros, $7.7 billion) in the construction of airports, roads, hotels and improving sports infrastructure," he said.

Roman Shpek, Ukraine's ambassador to the European Union, said the decision to allow Ukraine to be co-host of the Euro 2012 could not be underestimated.

"It is one more step toward Ukraine's integration to the EU," Shpek told the International Herald Tribune. "After all the political debates and struggles over the past several months, this is really good news for the Ukrainian people."