Expect the Unexpected! EURO2012 stadia (almost all) ready!

Ukraine ahead of Poland…or not?

Better late than never! Against all the odds and rumors about the lack of progress with the tournament organisation, seven out of eight football stadia in Poland and Ukraine are finally finished. And whilst the new FK Karpaty Stadium in Lviv will be the last Ukrainian stadium to be inaugurated as host venue of EURO2012 on 29 October 2011, the building works in Warsaw are still in progress with the opening being expected at some stage in February. But just like the entire preparations for these first European Championships in Eastern Europe up until now, the construction works and stadium openings again featured  some yet unforeseen curiosities…

Looking back - Lviv

A bit more than a year ago, the building site of the new stadium and UEFA EURO2012 host venue Lviv was still not much more than an advanced foundation pit, although the originally announced date for the opening was December 2010. Several construction companies after one another had before been unsuccessful in making real progress with the finalization of the stadium.

There were rumors about corruption and arguments on building regulations between the building contractor and the local authorities, with the result that building works had been suspended over several months. But now, finally, Lviv is able to celebrate its new high-class stadium with an opening ceremony that should be “amusing and modest, however, everybody will remember it,”, as Lviv’s mayor Andrei Sadoviy describes it. On 15 November 2011, the stadium will host its first international football match with Ukraine vs Austria.

Kyiv

If it goes like in Kyiv, the opening in Lviv certainly will be another night to remember. The opening of the Olympic Stadium in front of 60,000 people at the beginning of October 2011 featured not only a three hour show with appearances of Ukrainian president Viktor Janukowitsch, singer Shakhira and box world champion Vitali Klitschko. It also saw a burning roof caused by the official pyro displays during the show and 50 people with totally blocked views because of construction faults. The latter also couldn’t see the three topless female activists of the organisation FEMEN invading the pitch to rightly raise awareness for the expected boom of the sex industry and trafficking in Ukraine during the tournament, calling for a “EURO2012 without prostitution”. The first football match in the new stadium will be Ukraine vs Germany on 11 November 2011. FSE members from both countries will also be there and organise test fans’ embassies and fan guides for this game.

Wroclaw, Gdansk & Warsaw

Only Wroclaw has yet managed to top this range of events around the inauguration of a football stadium with curiosity: for their stadium opening last month, the American stadium management seemed to have got carried away in their longing for familiar forms of entertainment back in the US. Consequently, the local population might have been quite surprised to get to know their new UEFA EURO2012 stadium and home ground of Slask Wroclaw through a box fight of Vitali Klitschko, a gig of George Michael for the official opening and finally a Monstertruck Show.

Well well, why not…Fortunately, the stadium management afterwards seems to have remembered the original main purpose of the whole construction: on 11 November 2011 Poland will play Italy in the first international friendly match, again accompanied by FSE test fans’ embassies of our Polish and Italian fans’ initiatives.

Gdansk’s new ‘amber jewel’, the PGE Arena and new home to football team Lechia Gdansk was actually said to open its gates with the Poland vs France international friendly in June 2011 already. But police decided that the stadium was not ready to accommodate spectators for safety and security reasons, in view of non-existent emergency exits, access routes for ambulances, fire brigade and police”. So, the match had to be moved to the old stadium in Warsaw. Funnily though, two months later, it was then Gdansk that granted asylum to the Poland vs Germany friendly which could not be hosted in Warsaw because of delays with the finalisation of the stadium construction works there...

And the others?

We probably can be sure that the upcoming months ahead of the tournament will be filled with new stories about seemingly chaotic preparations or delays or else. But evidence shows that – in one way or the other – Ukraine and Poland have managed to get their stadia ready – well, almost all of them.

Compared to the circus around stadia construction works in the other UEFA EURO2012 host cities, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Poznan seem almost boringly well-organised when it comes to their stadia since they had been ready for a couple of years even!

That said, and although football stadia are admittedly crucial for hosting an international football tournament, the other infrastructure is as well, as are fan hosting measures. Whilst Ukraine thereby wins the internal preparation contest in the category “Stadium Construction” and even manages the area “Road Works” with less major failures, Poland is comparably at the forefront of preparations for the tournament in the area of fan hosting and generally is better off with providing inexpensive accommodation and tourism services.

May both countries win in the end, for the sake of a good tournament for all fans ….and rest assured, we’ll keep pushing for it. :)