Five new stadiums were built for the tournament, and the hosts invested heavily in improving infrastructure such as railways and roads at UEFA's request.

The hosting of the event was initially contested by five bids representing seven countries: Croatia–Hungary, Greece, Italy, Poland–Ukraine, and Turkey.

Italy, which received the remaining votes,[2] had been considered favourites to win the hosting, but incidents of fan violence and a match-fixing scandal were widely cited as factors behind their failure.

[17] Fifty-one teams entered to compete for the fourteen remaining places in the finals, alongside co-hosts Poland and Ukraine.

As was the case for the 2000, 2004 and 2008 finals, the sixteen finalists were divided into four seeding pots, using the UEFA national team coefficient ranking.

[22] The pot allocations were based on the UEFA national team coefficient rankings of the sixteen finalists at the end of the qualifying competition in November 2011.

As defending champions, Spain were also automatically assigned to Pot 1, though their UEFA ranking at the time of the draw was coincidentally also the best.

With Poland automatically assigned in advance to A1, and Ukraine to D1, Pot 1 only had two teams as Spain and the Netherlands were to be drawn into position one in either group B or C.[22][24] The balls were drawn by four former players who had each been part of European Championship winning teams: Horst Hrubesch, Marco van Basten, Peter Schmeichel and Zinedine Zidane.

[26] In order to meet UEFA's requirement for football infrastructure improvements, five new stadiums were built and opened in advance of the tournament.

The remaining three stadiums (in Kyiv, Poznań and Kharkiv) underwent major renovations in order to meet UEFA's infrastructure standards.

The transport infrastructure in Poland and Ukraine was also extensively modified on the request of UEFA to cope with the large influx of football fans.

[32] Over 12 million applications were received, which represented a 17% increase on the 2008 finals, and an all-time record for the UEFA European Championship.

It is designed to be easier to dribble and control than the reportedly unpredictable Adidas Jabulani used at the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

[38] Each national team had to submit a squad of 23 players, three of whom must be goalkeepers, at least ten days before the opening match of the tournament.

The trophy given to the winners remains in the ownership of UEFA; however, the winning nation, Spain, received a full-size replica.

UEFA's Control and Disciplinary body has the ability to increase the automatic one match ban for a red card (e.g. for violent conduct).

A hundred days before the first match a 35.5-metre-high (116 ft) hot air balloon in the shape of the trophy was flown in Nyon, Switzerland and visited 14 cities throughout the host countries, reminding spectators of the impending tournament.

On 20 April 2012, the trophy tour started and visited the Polish cities of Warsaw, Wrocław, Gdańsk, Poznań, Kraków, Katowice and Łódź.

The official logo for the tournament was unveiled at a special event at Mykhailivska Square, Kyiv, on 14 December 2009 and was designed by Portuguese group Brandia Central.

[100] It took its visual identity from Wycinanki or Vytynanky, a traditional form of paper cutting practised in rural areas of Poland and Ukraine.

[106] In Spain, the broadcasting company Mediaset España commissioned the song "No hay 2 sin 3", performed by David Bisbal and Cali & El Dandee and produced by RedOne.

[110] UEFA signed a worldwide licensing agreement with Warner Brothers Consumer Products to help promote the tournament.

[113] The UEFA Euro 2012 video game was released by EA Sports as a downloadable expansion pack for FIFA 12.

According to UEFA requirements, TP ensured approximately 2х70 Gbit/s data communication speed from Polish stadiums and 2х140 Gbit/s between Poland and Ukraine.

The main cause of discussion was the BBC current affairs programme Panorama, entitled Euro 2012: Stadiums of Hate, which included recent footage of supporters chanting various antisemitic slogans and displays of white power symbols and banners in Poland, plus Nazi salutes and the beating of South Asians in Ukraine.

[135][136][137][138] In response to Yulia Tymoshenko's hunger strike and her mistreatment in a Ukrainian prison some European politicians and governments announced that they would boycott the matches in Ukraine.

[139][140] Ukraine came under criticism from animal welfare organisations for killing stray cats and dogs in order to prepare for Euro 2012.

[141] Ukrainian Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources and Minister of the Environment promised to take action to prevent killing animals but it still remains unclear how these measures were enforced.

[146] Other important issues were associated with FEMEN's group protests against prostitution and sex tourism in Ukraine, and enormous increases in hotel prices by many hoteliers in the country.

[147][148] In total, four nations were fined by UEFA for racist activities by their fans (none of them were hosts): Germany, Spain, Croatia and Russia.