During a press-conference on Friday, the Head of UEFA EURO 2012 Local Organizing Committee in Ukraine Markiyan Lubkivskyi has presented a new agency to the media.
“This is an independent institution founded by the Ukrainian FA and financed by the UEFA. Its functions consist in the preparations and conducting − under the UEFA’s aegis − the final tournament in Ukraine”, he said.
Different functions
Markiyan Lubkivskyi emphasized that mass-media have to distinguish competence of the state authorities from LOC’s sphere. Thus, the government and host cities are responsible for the preparations of the infrastructure required − i.e. stadiums, airports, hotels, roads etc. While the LOC along with the UEFA take care of the tournament staging per se. “We are in a role of some general manager who must conduct the tournament according to the highest standards”, he explained.
Phase of action
According to Mr. Lubkivskiy, now Ukraine has been beginning a phase of active preparations and organization of the tournament itself. “We are in a process of making UEFA EURO 2012 objects to fulfil the conditions for hosting matches. All sides involved − the UEFA, Ukrainian FA, LOC, state and local authorities − are acting in close collaboration. For our part, LOC in Ukraine has started a great number of corresponding projects”.
No ‘plan B’ for UEFA
Head of the Ukrainian LOC has no doubts in UEFA's commitment to organise the 2012 UEFA European Championship in Poland and Ukraine. “Every day I communicate with the colleagues from UEFA and I see no reasons to think they have any ‘plan B’ with regard to Ukraine. We continue to prepare four cities in each of host-countries. UEFA is eager to hold the tournament in Ukraine and Poland in a ‘4+4’format, but only if both states meet the minimum requirements”, he added.
Plea to the media
“These criteria and standards lie in the fundamental contractual documents of sides and also in the decisions of the Executive Committee of UEFA in Bucharest. Meeting these requirements will be determining for a final decision on the tournament’s format. The decision will be announced by the UEFA Executive Committee on December 10-11. So I ask you to keep this fact in mind and don’t listen to different scuttle-butts and frank lie, which, unfortunately, are circulated by the ill-wishers of the tournament”, Lubkivskiy applied to the present reporters.
Meeting the requirements
“UEFA fully supports Ukraine and wants to help us. However, this organization can’t fulfill our country’s difficult, but feasible home-work”, he marked. “Here I would like to notice that actually there is nothing special in these requirements. They are the European standards of life. These are comfortable and safe stadiums, modern airports, ramified network of hotels, comfortable public transport, safe roads etc. So, EURO 2012 is an effective instrument for achieving these high standards.”
IBC location
Markiyan Lubkivskiy also explained the UEFA’s decision to place the International Broadcast Center of EURO 2012 in Warsaw. A lot of people decided it meant that the final match of the Championship would also take place in the capital of Poland, but not in Kyiv. But, in fact, the location of IBC does not influence the determination of the host city of the final. “Warsaw was chosen for IBC location only for the technical reasons. Poland is a member of the European Union, so from the point of logistic and customs legislation it is simpler to bring necessary apparatus there”, he explained.
Groundless conclusions
Groundlessness of conclusions of some foreign mass-media is also confirmed by long-term practice of UEFA and FIFA. For example, the final match of EURO 2000 took place in Rotterdam, and a broadcast center was located in Amsterdam. The last game of World Cup 2002 was played in Yokohama, and IBC was located in Seoul. An analogical situation was at WC-2006 in Germany as well: the finale − in Berlin, IBC − in Munich.
(Source: ffu.org.ua)
