Paviel Bielavus

What is soccer? It is a strange question, and funny enough, funs and lovers of this game in different countries will have different answers to it. For Belarusians lately the word “soccer” is used mostly alongside with the word BATE and hopes that our national team is about to win the Ukrainians first and the Croats later and get into at least some championship, but these are still dreams.
In our neighboring countries soccer is associated with totally different dreams. They reproach their own national teams no less than we do, but they love soccer for real, with emotions, beer and feeling of feast with every game which is important for the country. This is how Ukraine and Poland which got united for the joint cause achieved that when people talk about soccer in the next several years, they talk in the first place about Euro-2012 which will be held namely in these two countries together. In such a way, the national teams of Poland and Ukraine got the possibility to get into the European championship without qualifications.
Meanwhile, in late September I had a chance to visit the Polish heart of the future soccer feast courtesy of the Center for International Relations based in Warsaw. Concurrently in Poland and Ukraine two associations called “EURO 2012″ and established directly by UEFA started to work from July. I was invited there together with a group of Belarusian journalists by press secretary of the Polish association Juliusz Głuski.
As Mr. Głuski told us, the main objective of these associations is to hold a good championship. The expressely established Polish government organization “PL 2012″ concerns itself with ensuring good roads, stations, airports, and hotels, and “EURO 2012″ must do everything in order to ensure games and a truly good “soccer show”.
European mass media publish from time to time different news stories about the future championship. One of the main issues: will Ukraine succeed in getting ready for competitions on time and properly, or will Germany have to undertake Ukraine’s responsibilities? Juliusz Głuski reassured firmly: “It is impossible that the championship takes place in Poland and Germany, or only in Poland, or only in Germany. There will not be a Euro-2012 without Ukraine, because initially it was the project of our two countries, and even the Ukrainians were the first to come up with this idea”.
The press secretary gave us some interesting facts. In Ukraine problems are greater with infrastructure, and not stadiums. Local oligarchs have already built or are building good soccer arenas for their clubs, so, according to Mr. Głuski, Ukraine will implement for one hundred per cent its plans for construction of stadiums. The final decision about holding games in Kyiv was taken already, and Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Lviv were given time by UEFA till the end of October to prove that they are ready to do everything faster.
In Poland for the time being the issue of good roads has been resolved less that the issue of stadiums, because good roads and their construction are in private hands, and stadiums are being built with assistance from the State. In Warsaw plans are to put the stadium in commission in the first part of 2011; it is being built on the right bank of Vistula on the site of the former Stadium of the Tenth Anniversary, where the renowned big Warsaw market was also situated earlier. In Poznan the city stadium is being modernized, and in Wroclaw and Gdansk new stadiums will be built.
No less importance for holding EURO has also the accommodation of the so-called “UEFA family” which is made of top managers and officials of the Federation, teams and their personnel – all of them are VIP-guests of the championship and according to UEFA’s demand they must be accommodated in five-star hotels. There are also several conditions for teams: the training site and the hotel must be within twenty-minute traveling distance by bus, and the team should get from the place of accommodation to the airport and the stadium in less than one hour.
The Polish and Ukrainian associations “EURO 2012″ are temporary associations. As Juliusz Głuski admitted, in September 2012 this structure will cease its existence and all its employees including him will become unemployed. But now about twenty people work in the Polish office of the association, and it is envisaged that soon the skyscraper’s floor that they occupy all by themselves will employ up to two hundred people and then they will begin true preparations for the soccer championship which for the first time will take place near the very borders of Belarus.
Will it be easy for Belarusians to get to the championship? This issue has not yet been resolved; much depends on our national team.
And now Belarusians have only to wait till February 7 when in the Warsaw Place of Culture and Science the drawing procedure of the group qualifications to Euro-2012 will be held.