Tonight’s European Championship draw saw Ireland draw Spain, Croatia and Italy in the group stage of next summer’s tournament. But what’s it going to be like for Irish fans going to Poland?
As of tonight, Irish soccer fans can start making decisions about booking flights or buying that second hand camper van and painting it green.
We know who Ireland is playing next summer and we know where it will be. But with 189 days left to go until the tournament kicks off, are both Poland and Ukraine ready for the masses of football fans that will descend upon their cities?
For the most part, the answer is yes, they are ready. Or at least they will be ready in time for next June.
Building, building, building
Poland and Ukraine have made herculean efforts to get ready in time for the big kick off. Six world-class stadiums have been constructed, new motorways have been built, train stations renovated and new airport terminals have sprung up in some of the host cities. The bill has been hefty: €22.5 billion spent by Poland and an estimated €17 billion forked out by Ukraine.
In Warsaw, during the past eight months, I’ve noticed a number of building projects taking place in, and around the Polish capital. The one infrastructural project, which every Varsovian has an opinion on, is Stadion Naradowy. The new Polish National Stadium overlooks the Vistula river on the city’s east side and will host the tournament’s opening match on 8th June. On Tuesday, the bulk of the stadium’s work was finally completed, five months over-schedule. Tournament organisers, of course, received heavy flak from the Polish press and politicians for delaying the delivery of Polish football’s prize stadium.
Other preparation work has been more low key. When I first arrived here in February, the city’s central train station was a dour looking relic of the Communist past and signs inside the station were solely in Polish. Eight months of renovation later, the station has been given a facelift and is almost complete. Signs are now also displayed in English making it possible for non-Polish speaking commuters to navigate their way through the maze of underground corridors and platforms.
With the Republic drawn in one of the groups based in Poland, Irish fans may experience the fun of trying to buy a ticket at Warsaw central train station from a ticket lady who only replies loudly in Polish. My advice: have your phrase book at the ready.
In the industrial south of Poland, where my wife is from, construction is evident too. Every time we visit her family, I’m often surprised to find a new stretch of modernised motorway nearing completion.
Euro 2012 may have been the catalyst for Poland to prepare for a football tournament but Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government has seized the event to deliver a motorway network that will soon rival that of other large European nations.
Infrastructural delays
The six new world-class stadia in both Poland and Ukraine have been built mostly on schedule. It’s the delivery of transport infrastructure however that has provided the greatest number of hiccups in both countries.
In Poland, new airport terminals in Gdańsk and Poznań are still to be finalised and last June, the Chinese construction giant, COVEC, pulled out of a deal to complete a major section of the new A2 motorway between Warsaw and Łódź, which will link the Polish capital with Berlin. Pay disputes with Polish subcontractors were the cause of the contractual rupture, leaving the Polish government with no choice but to hastily find a replacement firm.
So what about Ukraine? Last month, in Kiev, Colombian pop sensation Shakira opened the new 70,000-seater stadium on time with all the razzmatazz one would expect of a pop concert. Yet, Ukraine’s efforts to improve travel infrastructural have, as a whole, lagged behind set deadlines.
Work on renovating airport terminals in Kiev, Lvov, Kharkov and Donetsk is expected to run right up until June and massive stretches of the Ukraine’s aging road network look unlikely to be fully modernised in time for the tournament.
Ukraine’s Achilles heel is its lack of hotels. Donetsk, the tournament’s most easterly city, will host one of the tournament’s semi-finals, but simply does not have enough rooms to cater for the colossal number of expected fans.
Dealing with a troublesome minority
Most Poles that I speak with are looking forward to Euro 2012. Many see it as just another step in Poland’s journey towards finally being accepted as an integral part of the European family.
“After Euro 2012, Poland will become more accessible for other Europeans to visit and Polish people might also feel more integrated with the rest of Europe”, says Zbigniew, a 28 year-old bank employee.
Maria, a 35 year-old office worker is also looking forward to Euro 2012 arriving in Warsaw, but has one main concern. “The only thing I’m worried about are some fake Polish football fans who are just hooligans”, Maria tells me.
Maria, of course, is referring to Poland’s problem with football hooliganism, which has reared its ugly head at two high profile matches already this year: once during an international friendly between Poland and Lithuania and also during the Polish Cup final last May between Legia Warszawa and Lech Poznan.
And when, violence erupted during a clash involving groups of far-right and far-left militants in Warsaw’s Plac Konstytucji on 11th November, rock throwing protesters sporting Legia Warszawa scarves, the capital’s main football team, were filmed at the forefront of the disturbances.
Polish authorities have been doing their utmost to isolate such groups from attending next summer’s matches. In the event of any trouble erupting, Polish justice minister, Krzysztof Kwiatkowski has enacted legal provisions to set up special rooms inside stadiums, whereby suspected hooligans will be tried on the spot via video link to nearby courthouses.
Czy pani mowi po angielsku? (Do you speak English?)
English is, of course, the lingua franca of Europe and the tournament’s organisers have been quietly worried from the outset that there would be a lack of English speaking employees in public transport locations in both countries.
Warsaw and Kiev’s response has been to send thousands of its police officers and civil servants on English language courses. Even 3,000 Polish rail employees have undergone English language training courses, which is good news for Irish fans that will travel on Poland’s famous PKP trains next summer.
I’ve never attempted to speak English to any Polish train staff so I can’t honestly vouch for this project’s success. But hopefully Irish fans will take on any linguistic challenges in their stride and pick up a few words of Polish or Ukrainian along the way.
The long wait is almost over
When Robbie Keane scored the Republic’s third goal against Estonia in Talinn last month, I started receiving texts from friends back home. The sofa and the floor space in our apartment were duly booked. Whether Friday’s draw places the Republic in Warsaw or Gdansk, Kiev or Donetsk, Irish fans will travel in their droves.
It has been a long wait for the Republic of Ireland since our last outing at a European Championship, twenty-four years to be exact. So we’ll enjoy our place at the finals.
But Euro 2012 probably means more to Poles and Ukrainians than it does to the other nationalities. It’s the first time that both countries have played host to a major sporting event and Euro 2012 bears as much cultural significance as it does sporting significance to both nations. In a continent whose western nations are beset by economic difficulties, an event in the ‘new’ Europe is just what the doctor ordered.
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