Poland and Ukraine today won the race to host the European Championships in 2012 after beating off bids from Italy and Croatia-Hungary.

UEFA overlooked favourites Italy, whose bid was overshadowed by last season's referee corruption scandal and their on-going problems with football-related crowd trouble.

The decision was taken by 12 members of UEFA's executive committee meeting in Cardiff.

Poland and Ukraine had staged an impressive presentation yesterday with Chelsea striker Andriy Shevchenko, Liverpool keeper Jerzy Dudek, world heavyweight boxing champions Vitali Klitschko, former pole vault Olympic champion Sergei Bubka and Ukraine president Victor Yushchenko all making appearances.

The victory for Poland and Ukraine signifies the first step in new UEFA president Michel Platini's plan
to spread the benefits of football throughout Europe and not just the big nations.

It is even more surprising as there has been a match-fixing scandal in Poland, whose government was also warned by FIFA and UEFA about political interference in the Polish FA.

Four Ukrainian cities and six Polish venues have been lined up as host cities for 2012.

The four Ukrainian venues are Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kiev and Lviv while Gdansk, Krakow, Poznan, Warsaw, Wroclaw, Chorzow have been earmarked for games in Poland.

Poland and Ukraine won in the first round of voting with eight of the 12 votes while four went to Italy and none to Croatia and Hungary, according to UEFA sources.

Italy's sports minister Giovanna Melandri insisted their bid had been strong.

She said: 'This was a choice made because of football politics in UEFA to give a chance to some countries who have recently joined the European Community.'

Polish FA president Michal Listkiewicz said: 'Finally one of the big football events is coming to the countries which have had no opportunities to improve their football.

'Finally, we have this opportunity and I would like to thank everyone who trusted and supported us.'

UEFA president Michel Platini said: 'Today Poland/Ukraine has been chosen by the UEFA executive committee to host Euro 2012 and they are surely a worthy winner. However there are no losers today, rather only bids that have not won this time round.

'I cannot speak highly enough of the effort that has been made, and the passion for football we have seen in all three bids.'

Source: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=422695&cc=5739