With two months left until kick-off in Euro 2012, European football's governing body UEFA is training groundsmen from host nations Poland and Ukraine to ensure the pitches will be up to scratch.
Some 40 participants are taking part in a course at the Henryk Reyman Stadium in the southern city of Krakow, said Adrian Ochalik, spokesman for top-flight club Wisla who play there.
"Participants have been getting to grips with things like UEFA's rules on how to take care of grass to give it the right height," Ochalik told the Polish news agency PAP.
Marek Wypychowski, a groundsman from Warsaw, where the European championships kick off on June 8, said he and his counterparts expected their working days to run from 4:00 am to 11:00 pm before and during the tournament.
Krakow lost out in the race to be among the eight venues for the the 16-nation tournament - four in each host country - but has been picked as a base camp by both England and Holland.
The Dutch will train at Wisla's 33,000-capacity stadium, which was upgraded in 2011.
England, meanwhile, have opted for the 6,000-capacity Suche Stawy Stadium, home to fifth-tier club Hutnik, which was likewise renovated two years ago but has had to be further spruced up for the visitors.
Besides Warsaw, Poland's other Euro 2012 host cities are Gdansk on the Baltic coast, Poznan in the west and Wroclaw in the southwest.
Ukraine's four tournament stadiums are in the western city of Lviv, Donetsk and Kharkiv in the east, and the capital Kiev, where the final will be played on July 1.
Source: AFP
