Poland and Ukraine have been chosen to co-host UEFA EURO 2012. They won the battle to host the quadrennial tournament involving Europe's top nations ahead of one bid from Italy and another joint-effort from Hungary and Croatia. It will be the first time that either Poland or Ukraine have hosted a major football championship.



"There are 85 million people now waiting for this big football event," Polish FA chairman Michal Listkiewicz said after Platini had revealed the winner.

"Ukraine president Viktor Yushchenko said in a statement that the decision offered a great opportunity to both countries to host an "extraordinary" sporting event.



"Holding the 2012 European Championship will be a wonderful opportunity for Ukrainians and Poles to welcome the best representatives of Europe's soccer family and produce an extraordinary sporting event," he said.

The projected Polish venues for the tournament include Gdansk, Poznan, Warsaw and Wroclaw while the Ukrainian cities of Kiev, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Lviv would stage games.

Kiev's Olympic Stadium, used to host soccer at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, is the proposed venue for the final.