Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) plans to transfer EUR 55 million to national football associations for their contribution to the holding of the Euro 2012 European football championship finals.

Ukrainian News learned this from a posting on the Web site of UEFA.

The statement reads that clubs that contributed to making UEFA EURO 2008 in Austria and Switzerland such a success are set to receive solidarity contributions after UEFA finalized its calculations on the amount of money to be handed to national associations following this summer's tournament.

"The target total amount set for distribution to the national associations from UEFA EURO 2008™ was fixed at €43.5 million. For UEFA EURO 2012™, the target total amount to be distributed is set at €55 million, provided the final financial results of UEFA EURO 2012™ are substantially similar to those of UEFA EURO 2008™," the posting reads.

These contributions form part of the agreement of the historic Memorandum of Understanding, signed between UEFA and the European Club Association (ECA) on 21 January 2008.

A total of 180 clubs are set to benefit from their contribution to the success of the final round of UEFA EURO 2008, and together they represent 24 of UEFA's 53 national associations.

The German football clubs will receive the largest sum of EUR 6.8 million, Spanish will receive a sum of EUR 5.1 million, and English clubs will receive EUR 4.8 million.

As for Ukrainian clubs, they will receive EUR 372,513.

The club's share was calculated by the "per player per day" amount multiplied by the number of days each player was at UEFA EURO 2008.

This started two weeks before the first match of a player's national team until the day after his team was eliminated. From this, the relevant percentage of the share was calculated to be passed on to the club(s) with which any player was registered in the preceding two years prior to the start of the final tournament.

In order to be eligible for a share of the benefits from UEFA EURO 2008 and for UEFA EURO 2012, clubs were asked to fill in, sign and return a Club Application Form to UEFA, in which they agreed to support national team competitions and to comply with the FIFA regulations on the release of players.

Some 636 clubs duly filled in, signed and returned the forms.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Ukraine and Poland will host the Euro 2012 European football championship finals.

The European football championship finals will start in June 2012.