The UEFA delegation visited Poland for several days.

The UEFA experts came to inspect the state of the preparations of the Polish cities to the organisation of the 2012 European Football Championship.
UEFA has divided the whole preparation procedure into eight sections. The recent experts' visit was concerned with land transport, air transport and accommodation. The delegation visited Warsaw, Poznań, Wrocław and Gdańsk.
'The UEFA experts are excellent specialists in their fields. They will meet the cities' representatives and learn about the current state of preparations and plans. After visitation they will generate the report containing conclusions and recommendations. I may say that there is a lot of kindness on their part,' says Adam Olkowicz, head of the Polish Football Association (PZPN)'s Euro 2012 team.
In Poznań the delegates were interested primarily in the state of works on the construction of the city stadium where the group matches of EURO 2012 are to take place. The experts have also inspected the condition of the hotel base, investment plans with regard to new hotels and access roads to the stadium, and the expansion of the passenger terminal of the Poznań airport. Some of the delegates even took a tram ride in order to see how fast you could get from the city centre to the stadium.
In the next months other UEFA experts' commissions are to visit Poland and thus also Poznań. Then the delegations will deal with other safety issues and the state of the stadium construction.

According to many experts, at the present moment Poznań is already the city which is best prepared for the organisation of the 2012 European Football Championship. The city's stadium has been modernised for several years, while in the other cities the works will start in 2008 or even in 2009.
The Poznań city stadium may currently hold around 27.000 spectators. In the last few years the new so-called fourth stand was put to use and the stand behind one of the goal posts was modernised. In the next year there will start the reconstruction of the main stand. The works should be completed in 2010. Then the Poznań city stadium will be able to hold 50.000 spectators. The investment cost is estimated at PLN 200m, i.e. EUR 60m.
In relation to EURO 2012 in Poznań there are to be built several large hotels and the access roads to the city and the stadium are to be modernised. In the next year there will start the construction of a motorway that is to link Poznań with the Polish German border in Świecko. Within the next few months there will also be started modernisation works of the Poznań-Wrocław road no. 5 and the Poznań Gdańsk road. The money for the expansion of the stadium will come from the city budget and the state budget. The funds for the road and motorway modernisation will come from the state budget and the EU grants.      
Poland and Ukraine will organise the 2012 European Football Championship. In Poland the matches will be played in Warsaw, Poznań, Wrocław and Gdańsk. Also Chorzów and Kraków make endeavours towards hosting the championship. In the Ukraine the matches will be played in Kiev, Lvov, Kharkov, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk.

Pictures: the City Hall