Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for UEFA EURO 2012 Borys Kolesnikov has described as unfounded the claims about a bribe allegedly given by Ukraine and Poland to UEFA officials to help the countries win the bid to host the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, he said this in an interview with Kommersant-Ukraine on Monday.
Kolesnikov stressed that the claims by Spyros Marangos, a member on the executive committee of the Cyprus Football Association, are nothing but "internal clashes among Cyprian football functionaries".
Moreover, Kolesnikov underlines, "this statement is three years old. If there was even a particle of truth, we would have no championship".
Spyros Marangos told the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung that UEFA officials accepted EUR 11 million worth of bribes to help Poland and Ukraine win their bid to host the European Championships in 2012. Marangos has claimed he was going to release information that five members of European football's governing body's Executive Board accepted the money to vote for Poland and Ukraine ahead of rivals Italy and another joint bid from Croatia and Hungary.
Meanwhile UEFA Secretary General Gianni Infantino has also rejected the accusations, but added that "the issue is being already studied by public relations department". However, Infantino stressed he was unfamiliar with Spyros Marangos and first heard about his claims.
Poland and Ukraine polled eight votes at the UEFA Congress in Cardiff in April 2007 when they were awarded the tournament while Italy got four and no-one voted for Croatia/Hungary.
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