You're reading: Surkis says Odesa mayor promised much, did little with respect to Euro 2012

Odesa Mayor Eduard Hurvits promised a lot, but did little to ensure Odesa was picked as a host city for the Euro 2012 European Football Championship, President of the Ukrainian Football Federation (FFU) Hryhoriy Surkis has said.

"The Odesa mayor promised a lot and did little. It was unnecessary to talk loudly and write letters to UEFA regarding why the city of Odesa was excluded [from the list of Euro 2012 host cities]. It was necessary to make the progress shown by Kharkiv, Kyiv and Lviv. Donetsk is currently making every effort not only to host group stage matches, but also to receive a chance to stage a quarter-final, and possibly a semi-final," he said at a press conference dedicated to the official presentation of the Euro 2012 logo in Kyiv on Monday.

Surkis said that following the UEFA Executive Committee’s decision of May 13, 2009 expelling Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk from the list of Euro 2012 host cities, the Odesa authorities had time to change the situation, but they started to send letters to FIFA and UEFA with a request to review the decision.

"During the endorsement of the decision by UEFA not to include Odesa on the list, Odesa, by the way, had a lot of time not to just write angry letters to FIFA and UEFA, but to work without a break, as all [of the other] cities [Kyiv, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Lviv] did," he said.