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Hosts are Poles apart as Ukraine bid looks doomed

Sean O'Conor

The replacement destinations for the tournament are, depending on whom you read, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Scotland & Wales, Scotland & Ireland, Italy & France or Poland & Germany. A flying visit from UEFA inspectors last week has brought reassurance to Poland but confirmed there are problems with Ukraine, which could render the Poles' work meaningless.

D-Day is the 23rd of September, when UEFA will pass their final judgment in Bordeaux. "It is not a simple or easy task for Ukraine," UEFA President Michel Platini ominously said. That leaves two months for Ukraine to get its skates on, but surely the decision will have been taken privately beforehand. If it has been already, as some suspect, then UEFA is using the deadline merely to give itself time to prepare the announcement of an alternative host.

As it stands, four years is enough time for another country to step in, particularly one of the big five European football nations – England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, who all have adequate stadia and infrastructure at the ready. Four years before hosting Euro 2008, neither Switzerland nor Austria had their stadia ready, and nor did Portugal for Euro 2004, although all three were superior to Poland in Ukraine in the other criteria.

Polish politicians are busy making defiant statements, while Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Julia Tymoschenko met UEFA President Michel Platini last week to assure him their country will keep its word on transport and stadium improvements. Yushchenko followed up that meeting by jetting to Austria to pick up some last-minute tips on hosting.

Despite having three new stadia to build, Poland seems to be in the clear after the UEFA inspection. "I feel reassured after this visit to the Polish side of the UEFA Euro 2012 project," Platini said. "All activities in Poland seem to be on track." Indeed, the Poles have tried to distance themselves from their partners now that their hosting is at risk. Announcing the country could provide six of the required eight venues, if necessary, Polish sports minister Miroslaw Drzewiecki optimistically announced, "We can sleep peacefully."

Poland also needs to upgrade its road and rail network and provide more hotel beds in Gdansk, Poznan and Wroclaw, but membership of the European Union hands the country potential access to a well of funds which Ukraine cannot call upon.

Ukraine is more divided politically, a fissure which has spilt over into the hosting of Euro 2012. President Yushchenko, who became famous as the leader of the Orange Revolution in 2004, and his photogenic female Prime Minister are at loggerheads over who is responsible for what could be an embarrassing national loss of face.

The delay on contract signing for the Kiev stadium rebuilding remains a sore point. Less than a week before the end of Euro 2008, the assigned Taiwanese contractors were fired after failing to sign binding contracts. Urgently required investment to improve transport and hotel accommodation (apart from in Kiev), estimated to be up to £13 billion, is still awaited, and with regards to rebuilding Ukraine's airports, it already seems too late.

Kiev Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky has blamed Tymoschenko for refusing to commit funds, while her government has retaliated by fingering President Yushchenko as the man responsible for the mess. Accusations of corruption are never far off in former Soviet nations, particularly one where a general election four years ago involved ballot-rigging, covert foreign involvement, plans for a military coup and the poisoning of one of the main candidates.

Ukraine's transportation is not bad, but still some way below the standards of Austria and Switzerland. The inter-city railway network is extensive but has a frequency below that of Western European nations, while many of the roads still date from the Soviet era and are in need of replacing.

Of the host cities, Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk have underground railways and the city transport across the four venues is on the whole adequate, although the buses, trains and trams are old by Western standards. But then the same could be said of Poland.

The two nations weren't exactly the best of bedfellows in the first place. The former is an EU nation, politically stable and decidedly westward in orientation, the latter a country still torn, at times violently, in culture and loyalties between Russia and the West. Their languages are both Slavic, though not mutually intelligible, but memories of swathes of Western Ukraine (including Euro 2012 host city Lviv) belonging to Poland before 1947 are still alive. While the two nations share over 300 miles of frontier, Ukraine is only one of seven nations which have borders with the Poles.

The well-known CIA World Factbook states strikingly that "Poland still faces the lingering challenges of high unemployment, underdeveloped and dilapidated infrastructure, and a poor rural underclass." Ukraine, meanwhile, has a male life expectancy of only 62 (!), nine years less than their joint hosts'.

Awarding football's biggest event after the World Cup should bring in a ton of welcome tourist money to both countries. Poland's previous experience of event hosting does not extend beyond the World Volleyball League Final, while Ukraine's consists of staging the European Rhythmic Gymnastics Championship and the Eurovision Song Contest.

While it seems premature to announce the end of the twin hosts for 2012, it looks like Ukraine at least might well miss the boat. PM Tymoschenko is remaining defiant that her country, "Will do everything, even the impossible," to keep the Euros on track, but time appears to be running out to impress Platini & Co.

Yet given his comments on Poland, a joint bid with four venues in bordering Germany would appear to be the most sensible compromise. Germany is Poland's No.1 trading partner anyway and the cross-border connections are far more developed than they are with Ukraine.

If UEFA decides to cut their losses in September, expect nobody from the Executive Committee to take responsibility for having selected two unfit hosts in the first place.

Poland and Ukraine were largely chosen as hosts because Italy, who came second in the voting ahead of Croatia & Hungary, had been recently hit by an epidemic of hooliganism and the fall-out from the Calciopoli match-fixing scandal.

Sean O'Conor

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