体坛英语新闻：Volunteers prepare for Euro 2012 football championship

WARSAW, April 19 (Xinhua) -- An official inauguration of training for thousands of volunteers qualified by UEFA to assist the organisation of Polish-Ukrainian Euro 2012 football tournament will take place this Saturday.

Some of them, however, have already been trained and started working.

The UEFA volunteer programme covers 5,500 people working in the two countries. The volunteers will perform different functions - most of them will start work at the beginning of June, but a smaller number have already been employed on the four Polish stadiums where temporary infrastructure is being created to organise the championship.

"Verification of almost 24 thousand applications from 142 countries and qualifying interviews lasted until the end of December 2011. We have been signing contracts with selected volunteers since January, some groups started their training in February, but the workshops with UEFA representatives will officially commence in Warsaw and Wroclaw on Saturday and in Gdansk and Poznan on Sunday," explains Kamila Czerwinska, a person responsible for voluntary work in Euro 2012 Poland company.

Not all volunteers will come this weekend as a large number of them come from abroad, sometimes from very distant countries, 83 in total. They include citizens from African countries, the Philippines, South Korea and Australia.

The employment period will depend on a volunteer's availability and function and will range from 5 to 40 days. The training programme is divided into two parts: general and specialist.

Some functions will require excellent stadium topography knowledge; others will call for "diplomatic" skills, as in the case of VIP welcome team.

Volunteers will work in such sections as accreditation, legal, marketing, media, VIP and representation, match organisation, technical maintenance and information and access control points.

The voluntary service programme also includes integration, cultural and social events. The volunteers will be provided with meals, insurance, a set of UEFA EURO 2012 gadgets and a special certificate to confirm their involvement in the programme.

Euro 2012, to take place from June 8 to July 1, 2012, will be co-hosted by the two countries' eight cities. The matches will be played in Poland's Warsaw, Wroclaw, Poznan, Gdansk and Ukraine's Kiev, Lvov, Kharkov and Donetsk.