Embrace Diversity: Football

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Is there life after the Euro 2012?

Is there life after the Euro 2012? Commonly asked question after thetournament. It has been extraordinary event and going to be hard to imagineKhreshatik and generally Kiev streets without fanzone, football fans andinternational environment. According to Ukrainian news sources, 8 millionpeople and 2 million vehicles crossed the border of Ukraine in June. It’s too early to count income and possible differencewith expenditure, but one thing that cannot be counted is the promotion andimage of Ukraine around Europe.

Despite the badpublicity in western media, also backed by the boycott of major Europeanleaders, Ukraine didn’t feel lack of international spectators. Certainly thenumber of visitors could be twice more, but the message will get across anyways.Ukraine has been exceptionally friendly and welcoming host. I had a feelingthat entire country was involved in the tournament in their small circles, bydoing little favour, smiling or helping guests from all over the world.

As regards tothe organisational issues, I personally had no high expectations about theevent. Ukraine and Poland are not Germany, or Austria-Switzerland (the previoushosts). Hence I was expecting shortcomings in organisational extent. But aftera month being part of the UEFA volunteer team, I should say that everythingwent smoothly and cannot recall a single incident from the whole tournament. Itwas indeed a great experience for Ukraine and post factum of the championship Imust say that giving a chance to Poland and Ukraine for hosting such a bigevent was undoubtedly good decision of UEFA. Infrastructure, generaldevelopment of the country, intercultural experience between different Europeanpeople is incomplete list of the benefits of such event.

Thanks toUkrainian tycoon Pinchuk, Kiev based fans had a privilege to enjoy free concertof Sir Elton John and Queen, with its new soloist Adam Lambert, who was a majordiscovery with his amazing voice and performing style. This concert has beenperfect edition of the Euro 2012.

Too many thingshappened in a month and hard to cover everything in one blog post, but takingglance to the June 2012, I can say that it has been the most amazing summer inmy life. Thank you Ukraine and thank you each and every individual who madethis month so memorable for me. There is indeed a life after Euro’12, slightlysad but full of positive emotions and wishes that once we’ll be back to thiscountry.

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Monday, June 11, 2012

Kiev starts

Euro 2012 finally arrives in Kiev. Capital city of Ukraine starts with Ukraine-Sweden. Atmosphere is fantastic as well as weather. No tickets left and everything is ready for a proper football celebration.

Swedish fans are ready as well. You can see them everywhere in the streets of Kiev and its much fun (video illustration). As national colours of both countries are the same Kiev goes pretty yellow today.

Yeah and when Swedes drink, they can express themselves :D

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Sunday, June 10, 2012

How football takes over the continent

June 2012 is a football month. At least European continent will be watching and talking about football. Even people who are not much excited about the EURO’12 unwillingly witness exalted crowd dressed and coloured in different national t-shirts/colours. or might be facing annoying comments/posts through social networks and traditional media outlets. Anyways, this is something that cannot be easily avoided. :)

Warsaw. Poland

Many friends of mine in Warsaw are not necessarily happy about being part of it, some try to escape from the championship to different cities and those who stay complain about football hysteria in the country/host cities. In fact, once you enter the capital of Poland, you realize that football pretty much took over everything, TV, Radio, Internet, ads which are literally everywhere starting from transport to skyscrapers. in addition to the overly football atmosphere, both countries Poland and Ukraine had quite high expenditure on the tournament. Infrastructure has been modernized, new highways, airport terminals, trains, additional means of transportation, metro and other urban changes, which have been going on for quite a while already. This is obviously not a full list of things happening for this one particular event, but most importantly as EURO’12 is a football championship, eight different stadiums have been built. Some completely new, some have been reconstructed entirely.. yep both countries are not the top football nations in Europe, thus most of the things have been done almost from nothing.

Certainly nobody has an expectation that Euro’12 will be the best organised event in the history, but in terms of developing football and triggering number of changes in these countries is something that UEFA can be proud of. Those stadiums and infrastructure will not disappear as Euro’12 ends. It will pay off in the end, and both countries have an excellent opportunity to attract quite a number of tourists and promote their countries all over the world.

On this note, I have to express my scepticism about the Georgian bid for hosting European Championship in 2020. Witnessing how Poland and Ukraine are dealing with things, it will be extremely hard, not if impossible to host such a massive event. Not to mention financial aspect (obviously not funded by UEFA), there are so many things need to be considered.. also number of countries for the European Championship will increase for the next tournaments, which means that more stadiums are needed, more resources and despite the fact that I do think those kind of events have great influence on countries development, I highly doubt that even theoretically Georgia can handle such a big event. In any case looking forward to the panel decision for the Euro 2020.

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Photo of the Day: EYP/WC'10

World Cup Final...Football and the EYP.

Snapped by Jim Cramer.

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Thursday, July 8, 2010

Football and Catalunyan Nationalism

Even tiny Catalunyan cities celebrate Spanish victory. Game was not even over when Fiesta started in the streets of Tarrega. Can imagine what is the situation in other, more Spanish cities of the country... As I was told by locals, it is not common to celebrate Spanish victories outside, which certainly is not a case when Barcelona wins.

Barcelona is actually a separate topic, an icon of Catalunya. More than a football club and a huge reason for keeping up Spanish integrity. Can you imagine Catalunyan championship? a game between Barcelona-Girona, or even Barcelona- Espanyol? without el Clasico football loses a lot and as far as it has a great importance for each and every inhabitant of this community it does influence on separatist ideas as well.

However, football isn't always enough for loyalty towards Spain in many cases, even the fact that 5-6 Catalunyan players are represented in Spanish squad is not sufficient reason to cheer up for Spain.