UEFA president Michel Platini praises Ukraine’s progress as co-host of Euro 2012

UEFA chief praises Ukraine on Euro 2012 progress

NYON, Switzerland — UEFA president Michel Platini praised Ukraine on Tuesday for making progress in its preparations to co-host the 2012 European Championship with Poland.

Platini said UEFA’s alert level in Ukraine has been scaled down from code red to orange.

“It’s excellent news for us,” Platini said after a meeting of UEFA’s executive committee. “Our ultimate goal is to go from orange to green. We haven’t reached that goal but we are going down the right path.”

Ukraine, which has suffered in the global economic crisis, was praised for developing projects to build hotels for teams, officials and visiting fans.

“All of a sudden they have found new hotels,” Platini said. “I don’t know how they did it.”

UEFA awarded hosting rights for the 16-team tournament to Poland and Ukraine in April 2007, rejecting the safer option of Italy’s bid.

But UEFA later threatened to strip Ukraine of hosting rights after it fell behind schedule in building stadiums, hotels and transport infrastructure.

The former Soviet republic has depended on loans from the International Monetary Fund and political decisions have been delayed by disputes between rival factions in the government.

UEFA issued an ultimatum in May, confirming only Kiev as a host out of the expected four cities required and holding off on previous plans to stage the final in the capital.

UEFA set a Nov. 30 deadline for Kiev to make progress in rebuilding its Olympic stadium, airport and infrastructure, and for the cities of Lviv, Donetsk and Kharkiv to show similar progress.

UEFA will decide the final list of Euro 2012 host cities when executive members next meet Dec 9-11 on Portugal’s Madeira islands.