A referendum is to be held in Krakow on May 25 on the southern Polish city's candidacy for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

The decision to put Krakow's Games bid to its people was taken by the city council on late Tuesday (Polish time).

Krakow's rivals to host the 2022 Games are Lviv in crisis-wracked Ukraine, Beijing, Oslo and Almaty in Kazakhstan.

All five cities submitted formal bids to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) last month.

After studying the bid files, the IOC's executive committee is set to pick the finalist cities at a meeting from July 7 to 9 at the committee headquarters in Lausanne. Their picks will then have several months to flesh out their projects before handing in complete candidate files by January 2015.

The host city will be elected at the 127th IOC session in Kuala Lumpur on July 31, 2015.