FIBA Europe is concerned about the slow progress of the construction of arenas for the EuroBasket 2015 European Basketball Championship, according to FIBA Europe Secretary General Kamil Novak, who will visit Ukraine to inspect these facilities in December.

"With less than two years until the tournament tip-off, the amount of work still left to be done remains significant," the press service of the local organizing committee for FIBA Europe quoted Novak as saying.

"Ukraine cannot afford any delay in the preparations for the tournament. It is impossible to provide any estimation prior to my visit, but at FIBA Europe we're concerned about the progress of arena construction, as this is a key aspect of the project."

EuroBasket 2015 Tournament Director Markiyan Lubkivsky earlier said that the tournament's matches would take place at those arenas that were built on time and that met FIBA Europe requirements.

During his visit to Ukraine, Novak intends to visit all six cities - Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Lviv, Kharkiv and Ivano-Frankivsk - that plan to host the championship's matches. Lubkivsky said that this visit should be seen as the first serious inspection of Ukraine's preparations for the EuroBasket finals in 2015: