Kiev - Ripples from the world financial crisis have shut down most Ukrainian preparation work for the Euro 2012 football championship, government officials said Thursday.

As much as 80 per cent of the infrastructure projects needed in the former Soviet republic to host the premier sports event have come to a complete stop for lack of funding or because of administrative difficulties, said Evhen Vilinsky, a spokesman for Ukraine's Euro 2012 preparation ministry.

Ukraine and Poland were named co-hosts for Euro 2012 in 2007. Since then both countries have struggled with preparations because of lack of funding and political in-fighting in each country.

Vilinsky said representatives from Ukraine's government had recently completed a nationwide inspection of stadiums, hotels, transportation networks, and other infrastructure Kiev promised would be built for the tournament.

"Most of it (the preparation effort) is completely stagnant," he said. "And what's worse, the mechanism for attracting investment (to finance the preparation effort) is actually degrading."

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko promised last year his country intended to pay for most of an estimated 40 billion dollar overhaul to infrastructure, by attracting private investment.

Economic contractions and credit shortages caused by the world financial crisis have put paid to the idea, and currently Ukraine's government has no plan for finding the money elsewhere, Vilinsky said.

"We already are not keeping up with the deadlines," he said.

Vilinsky singled out bureaucracy and red tape as another real barrier to Ukraine's preparation effort, noting that government approval to build a stadium could take years before ground is even broken - time he said Ukraine already does not have.

"At this rate we will receive permits to begin building everything that we need to build (for Euro 2012), only when it's actually time to run the tournament," Vilinsky said.

UEFA president Michel Platini warned earlier this year Poland and Ukraine both risked losing some or even all games scheduled in either country if infrastructure by 2012 failed to come up to international standards. (dpa)