Concerns and controversies related to UEFA Euro 2012

[2] At the same meeting, an appeal for the delayed decision on the Ukrainian venues was granted to Lviv, Donetsk, and Kharkiv in order to meet specific conditions regarding infrastructure, with a warning that only Kyiv and the best prepared city of the other candidates would otherwise be used if issues were not resolved by the end of November, though it took heavy amount of time and resources [3][4][5] In January 2008, UEFA President Michel Platini warned the organisers of the need to avoid "critical slippages" in their preparations,[6] prompting Scotland to volunteer as an alternative host twice.

[9] Ukraine reported several problems which threatened their ability to co-host, including delays in the renovation of Kyiv's Olympic Stadium,[10] and difficulties funding infrastructure work after the economic crisis struck.

[13] In September 2009, Platini announced that "Ukraine has made sudden progress in their efforts to stage the tournament,"[14] and it was soon confirmed that their four cities (Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Lviv) would host matches.

[15] An interview Platini gave to the German Football Association (DFB) in May 2010 suggested that Germany and Hungary could replace Ukraine unless improvements were made, casting new doubt on the nation's readiness.

[21][22] Following Yulia Tymoshenko's hunger strike which started on 20 April 2012 and her mistreatment in a Ukrainian prison, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, the Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding, and Androulla Vassiliou.

[28] Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk criticised calls for a boycott saying that they were inappropriate,[29] but added that Ukraine's reputation would "suffer dramatically" without a solution.

"[34] Meanwhile, the heads of state of Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy and Slovenia reportedly turned down an invitation to attend a summit of central and eastern European leaders that Ukraine was due to hold.

Russian President Vladimir Putin reacted in saying that the boycott call was wrong and offered to give Tymoshenko medical treatment in his country, this was rejected.

An attack on this big dream undermines the chances of...all the former Socialist Bloc members to prove that their economic, human and scientific potential can turn them from the debtors of Europe to its engine of growth.

"[30] On 28 May 2012, BBC current affairs programme Panorama examined the issues of racism, antisemitism and football hooliganism which it stated were prevalent among Polish and Ukrainian supporters.

[36] The programme, titled Euro 2012: Stadiums of Hate, included recent footage of supporters in chanting various antisemitic slogans and displays of white power symbols and banners.

The organization used me and others to manipulate the serious subject of anti-Semitism for its own sensationalist agenda... the BBC knowingly cheated its own audience - the British people - by concocting a false horror story about Poland.

"[43] Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Oleh Voloshyn responded that the allegations were an "invented and mythical problem",[44] and that "Nazi symbols can be seen at ... any match in England".

"[46] The Guardian reported: "Other sources have come forward to say that an interview with a Jewish Israeli player was also cut from the programme because he failed to confirm Panorama's "anti-semitism" thesis.

[48] Brendan O'Neill, the editor of Spiked wrote that England fans had staged "a protest against BBC Panorama's hysterical depiction of Ukraine as a hotbed of racism and anti-Semitism, which they have discovered during their stay in that country to be untrue.

...it was the respectable Beeb, echoed by broadsheets, which painted an entire nation "over there" as backward and prejudiced, while it has fallen to everyday fans to poke holes in this xenophobic mythmaking and to point out that there is actually nothing scary about modern Ukraine and its inhabitants.

[50] The Daily Mirror commented: "The biggest plus of Euro 2012 must be the scaremongering presented by BBC's Panorama of violence and terrible racism in Poland and Ukraine largely proved to be just that.

Croatia was also later charged with racist chants and symbols against Mario Balotelli in the Italy game with anti-discrimination monitors reporting monkey noises were being made as well as far-right Ustaše nationalist flags being displayed.

[62] The Polish Police fired warning shots and used water cannon to disperse rival groups of fans; around 100 arrests were made and ten people hospitalised – seven Poles, two Russians and one German.

Germany fans were charged with displaying "inappropriate banners and symbols", and fined $12,550 for bombarding Portuguese players with paper balls during their group match in Lviv.

[citation needed] Denmark forward Nicklas Bendtner was fined €100,000 and received a one-match ban by UEFA for unauthorised sponsorship during the group stage game against Portugal.

[67] On 13 November 2011 the Ukrainian Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources urged mayors around the country to stop the killings for six months and build shelters instead, but it was unclear how this measure will be enforced.

[71] The minister also agreed a programme of construction for new animal shelters, the first to be completed by June 2012, and the introduction of new legislation making it "compulsory for city mayors to enforce such new regulations or run the risk of facing prosecution.

[74] Hryhoriy Surkis, then head of the Ukrainian Football Federation, said that he "[thought] the people who committed this brutal crime...are also accomplices to an attack on the image of our country ahead of the Euro-2012."

[76] Following serious security concerns, Ángel María Villar, the Royal Spanish Football Federation president, reportedly offered to stage Euro 2012 in Spain.

[79][80] In April 2012, while on an inspection trip to the host city of Lviv, UEFA president Michel Platini labelled hoteliers as "bandits and crooks" for raising hotel prices in Ukraine for Euro 2012.

[82] Some hoteliers had increased prices eighty-fold, causing Prime Minister Mykola Azarov to warn that state control of hotel tariffs might be introduced.

In the second half, with Ukraine losing 1–0 to a header from Wayne Rooney, Dević's shot was hooked clear from behind the England goal-line by John Terry under the eyes of the fifth official standing beside the goal (as confirmed by video replays).