Euro 2012 – Ukraine and Poland

UEFA President Michel Platini has confirmed that UEFA will decide at its September meeting in France where the Euro-2012 tournament will take place. He pledged to Italy that in case of Ukraine and Poland failure to prepare for the championship, Italy will host it.

Meanwhile, according to newsru.ua, Platini believes things are not so bad in Euro-2012 host countries.

“We will know in September where the next championship will be,” he said. He confirmed plans to monitor closely how Ukraine and Poland are preparing for Euro-2012

“We should not be rash in our decisions and must respect the choice of Poland and Ukraine given to them in a democratic voting, but Ukraine and Poland must fulfill their commitments to host the games,” Platini continued.

UEFA president was asked questions as to what country will take over if Ukraine and Poland fail. Italy, the runner-up in the competition to host Euro-2012 is viewed as the hot favorite.

Save for the Olympic stadium in Rome and the Milano stadium, other stadiums are not as good and no longer meet UEFA standards. Florence, Genoa and Turin hosted 1990 World Soccer finals in 1990. Italy can apply again to host Euro-2016. If Italy wants to host the tournament, it will have it. I give Italy my word, Platini assured.

KIEV, July 31 (Reuters) – UEFA President Michel Platini urged the international community on Thursday to back Ukraine and Poland in organising Euro 2012 despite doubts the ex-communist states, especially Ukraine, are able to do so.

Platini, quoted by the Ukrinform news agency while visiting Italy, said such public support was vital “in order to implement the democratic decision made by the UEFA executive committee to hold Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine”.

UEFA chose the joint bid last year over submissions from Italy and another joint proposal from Hungary and Croatia.

Delays in rebuilding stadiums and proceeding with construction and modernisation of roads, airports and hotels have given rise to doubts that ex-Soviet Ukraine will be able to take on the mammoth task of staging half the tournament.

Platini has visited Ukraine twice this year and warned officials that the next few months were critical in moving ahead with preparations.

He said after talks in Kiev this month that a UEFA executive meeting in September would make a final assessment.

UEFA officials have denied suggestions that contingency plans have been drawn up to hand the tournament to another country if Ukraine proves unable to meet requirements.

In his latest comments, Platini denied a suggestion that such plans might involve Italy being asked to step in to run the tournament.

“Italy will probably want to stage the tournament in 2016,” he was quoted as saying, but added that the country’s stadiums were “not the best in Europe, old and not especially beautiful”.

One of the key issues dogging Ukrainian organisers is the renovation of Kiev’s 84,000-seat Olympic stadium, due to hold the Euro 2012 final.

A Taiwanese firm won a tender earlier this year to modernise the facility, but Ukrainian officials have since ceased all dealings with the company and reopened the bidding to German firm GMP and Britain’s Foster and Partners.

Media reports say the new contractor is to be chosen this week. (Reporting by Ron Popeski; Editing by Sonia Oxley)

Source:uk.reuters.com

A new international airport, based on a former military one, is to be built in Lutsk, the capital of the Volyn oblast. It will serve as a stand-by airport during Euro-2012 tournament in Ukraine. While German and Austrian experts put the bill at100 million euro, Ukrainian experts say 60 million euro will be enough, a ZIK correspondent reports July 30.

Volyn officials say the airport will be completed by 2012, with the initial stage of the construction of cargo-passenger terminals to begin in 2009. The project will be funded by investors.

At the second stage, parking lots, hotels and other infrastructure will be built. The third stage will include testing. The airport will come into service before Euro-2012.

Deputy Volyn oblast Governor Vasyl Bajtsym stressed the airport must be completed before Euro-2012. The highway linking Lutsk and Lviv will be repaired at the cost of $50 million and a highway by-passing Lutsk built to facilitate travel by football fans.

Comment by ZIK

Apr 10, 2008, while on a fact-finding tour in Ukraine UEFA expert Peter Gempsom admitted that the military airport in Lutsk is the best one he had seen in Ukraine.

Poland plans to double the amount of hotels in four years, bringing the total to 200,000.

Currently there just 100 new hotels constructed in the country every year.

The Euro 2012 football championships, to be co-hosted by Poland in 2012 is not the main reason for the rapid increase in building new accommodation for tourists and businesspeople, however. but rather the current deficit of rooms and the increase in Poles’ affluence.

Poland brings up the rear when it comes to the number of hotel rooms in Europe. There are only 50 beds to 10,000 Poles.

source Gazeta Prawna

The plan of the stadium in which Gdansk will host Euro 2012 championship football matches is ready, say organisers.

The facility, which will host football matches, concerts and other events, will be built in Gdansk’s Letnica district and will be able to seat 44,000 fans.

The plan is the first step in getting permission to construct the stadium and will be submitted by the city authorities on 8 August. The construction is planned to start in December this year and finish by the end of 2010.

The National Stadium in Warsaw is due to be completed by September 2011. After inspecting Poland’s progress at the beginning of July, UEFA president Michel Platini positively evaluated preparations to host the finals of the European Football Championship in Poland in 2012.

However, all is not well, as some cities are experiencing problems, such as not enough accommodation for the fans and UEFA officials that will come to the championships. Moreover, it was recently reported that the final section of the A2 motorway, linking Poland with the German border, may not be completed by 2012.

Gossip about Poland being stripped of hosting the European football championship Euro2012 were appearing and will appear, but this would be the ultimate step for UEFA

Gossip about Poland being stripped of hosting the European football championship Euro2012 were appearing and will appear, but this would be the ultimate step for UEFA.

“85 million Poles and Ukrainians is a market of enormous potential growth to sponsors of Euro2012. [...] Taking into account competition between public and private subscribers and the growing potential of broadcasting the games on the Internet or mobile phones, UEFA will earn euro 1.2 billion (that is even euro 500 million more than than in the West European variant),” said Jacek Bochenek, director of Euro2012 project at Deloitte.

He went on to say that Ukraine is particularly attractive for sponsors, as not all companies are present on that market yet. In his opinion, if UEFA took a negative decision for Poland and Ukraine, it would be hard to organize the games in any other Western European country.

The German Football Association (DFB) has denied press speculation that UEFA is considering giving it a co-hosting role in organising the Euro 2012 football championships.

The British Daily Telegraph claimed in a report that UEFA had written to the DFB on the matter – and the story was picked up by the German tabloid Bild.

Speculation has been growing that UEFA, exasperated at the lack of progress on the Ukrainian side will give Berlin the games instead of Ukraine.

The head of the German Football Association Wolfgang Niersbach said, however, that UEFA has not contacted the DFB on the issue and reminded that the readiness of Poland and Ukraine to stage the games will be assessed again in September.

According to some German commentators, rumours of a change of country comes from circles close to UEFA management in an attempt to put yet more pressure on Ukraine, as the association is displeased with how the country is preparing to host Euro 2012. German media say that Poland, on the other hand, has no trouble with preparations their side.

Another scenario mentioned by German media, besides taking the tournament away from Ukraine and giving it to another country, is postponing the championships in Poland and Ukraine till 2016, thus giving the countries more time to prepare, and giving Euro 2012 to Italy and Spain.

The German Soccer Federation has rejected allegations it has discussed with UEFA the possibility of Germany serving as co-host for Euro 2012.

The German Soccer Federation (DFB) on Tuesday, July 22, denied British media reports that the ruling body UEFA has been in contact over Germany possibly replacing Ukraine as a Poland’s co-host for Euro 2012.

“There has been absolutely no contact with UEFA in relation to this question and also no official query,” DFB general secretary Wolfgang Niersbach said. “UEFA’s executive committee will discuss Euro 2012 at the end of September in Bordeaux.”

The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported Monday that Germany was being lined up to replace Ukraine as co-host for Euro 2012 amid fears inside football’s ruling body that the East European country would not be ready to stage the event.

UEFA’s main concerns center around the political situation in Ukraine, delays to stadium construction and worries over transport infrastructure, the paper said.

Under the contingency plan reported by the Telegraph, Poland would host most of the games along with the eastern German cities of Berlin and Leipzig.

Chances are that the final section of the A2 motorway, linking it with the German border will not be completed by 2012.

The Wall Street Journal Polska has found out that Autostrada Wielkopolska (AW SA), the licence holder for the construction of the A2 motorway section between Nowy Tomysl, western Poland, and Swiecko on the Polish-German border, has pulled out of the construction project.

Instead, the investment will have to be continued by the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways (GDDKiA). But according to WSJ Polska, the chances that it will manage to complete the crucial 105 kilometre-long section of the A2 before the beginning of the Euro 2012 Championships in Poland are very slim.

Although representatives of AW SA and GDDKiA are said to be meeting for last-chance talks today, the majority of observers are pessimistic about the outcome due to the difference between the construction price of 12,500,000 euro per one kilometre of the motorway demanded by AW SA and 9,600,000 euro offered by GDDKiA.

AW SA has claimed that the price offered by the Directorate does not reflect actual construction costs or the euro exchange rate.

In the opinion of the former GDDKiA Chairman Janusz Koper, if a new contractor has to be appointed, the construction may be delayed by up to two years.

Germany are being lined up to replace Ukraine as co-hosts for Euro 2012 amid fears inside Uefa that the East European country will not be ready to stage the event.

Inspectors from the European game’s governing body, who visited the country two weeks ago, are putting together a report on the state of preparations which will go before their executive committee in September.

But Uefa are already making contingency plans to move the tournament from Ukraine because of concerns over the political situation, delays to stadium construction and worries over transport infrastructure.

It is understood that in the last week officials from Uefa have spoken to the German FA about playing a minor co-hosting role with Poland, whose preparations impressed inspectors. Berlin and Leipzig are possible venues.

Uefa sources admit the political situation in Ukraine, where presidential elections are due next year, have impacted on preparations which are behind schedule.

The situation is complicated by the involvement of controversial oligarchs in the Ukrainian Football Federation’s (UFF) organising committee. The Daily Telegraph has learned that the president of the UFF, Grigory Surkis, was banned from visiting the United States in 2004 because of corruption allegations. He was denied entry under a United States presidential order that authorises immigration officials to withhold visas from foreigners suspected of “corruption…that has or had serious effects on US national interests”, according to the American Embassy in Kiev.

Surkis was both a business and political associate of Viktor Medvedchuk, then head of the presidential administration. Surkis was also a deputy leader of the Social Democratic Party, headed by Medvechuk. The pair have been business partners since the early 1990s and founded the company that owns Dynamo Kiev.

An equally influential figure is the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, a vice-president of the UFF who has partly financed one of the main arenas for Euro 2012, the Dnipropetrovsk Stadium.

Opposition groups regard Kolomisky as the most powerful and controversial oligarch in Ukraine and say he is protected at the highest level. Privately Uefa admit the involvement of these individuals is a concern.