Euro 2012 in danger. Warsaw and Gdansk will not manage to build the stadiums in time. Without the special act we won’t prepare the championship on time. – UEFA can’t take us the Euro back – warns the chairman of PZPN, Michał Listkiewicz.
As we know, no national stadium will have been built in Warsaw by 2010, although European football authorities demand it – we have to renegotiate the contract. We will ask UEFA to let us complete construction a year before the first match – admitted the Minister of Sport, Elżbieta Jakubiak, yesterday.
And she invalidated the tender for design of national stadium, where the opening ceremony is to take place. “It used to have lots of formal and legal faults as well as conceptual ones” – she added.
And there won’t be any other tender. As Michał Borowski, ministerial coordinator of the construction of stadiums for Euro, said to “Gazeta”, there is no time for this.
According to Borowski, even now the Public Procurement Office has to accommodate the organizers. It shouldn’t report any reservations in the investments connected with Euro are executed without any tenders – If they don’t agree, one has to write the Prime Minister so that he called off the Euro – says Borowski to “Gazeta”.
– In the case of circumstance of so called urgency, then one may resign from the tender. Decision is made by the Principal himself and he is responsible for it. I only check its correctness – reminds Tomasz Czajkowski, the chairman of Public Procurement Office appointed in times of SLD. But he warns that so called private order (without a tender) gives nothing, because preparation of design documentation and construction of the stadium will take the largest amount of time.
– We will manage to be on time with Euro if everyone gets to work, and do is now. More precision, less considerations – alerts Czajkowski.
So far, we don’t even know where the national stadium is going to be built: either instead of the devastated Stadium of Decade or next to it. The Ministry of Sport is to decide in September. And if the construction is ever started, it will be in spring 2009.
The government foretells two special acts concerning Euro 2012. The firs one concerns creations of a huge corporation (over a 1000 well-paid specialists!) that is going to take care of the whole organization. The other one would let, among others, to omit the obligation about tenders. – If the Parliament does not accept them immediately, we won’t be in time – warns Borowski.
It’s as bad in Gdansk. Parsley grows where 40 thousands of fans is to watch the quarter-final match. The farmers will leave this area “after the season of vegetation in 2007 is completed”. In the first quarter of 2008 the city will announce a tender for a firm that would elaborate project of the stadium and execute building works. Is everything goes in accordance with the plan, Baltic Arena will have been ready by 2011.
– Stadiums in Portugal were transferred in last moments. UEFA will not make any problems because of a half-a-year delay – consoles Michal Brandt, spokesman of the Euro 2012 staff in Gdansk. Only the Lotos oil consortium from Gdansk declared to co-finance the construction. It is said that, in return, the consortium wants to change the name of the stadium into “Lotos Baltic Arena.”
Poznan, where the city stadium has been renovated for years, will be in time for sure. Wroclaw also assures that everything will be ok. – We announced a tender for design and decision will be made in the second part of October. In summer 2008 construction works will be started. The new stadium in Wroclaw on Maślice will be completed in 2010. As we agreed with UEFA – states Michal Janicki, a director in the city government.
The next meeting of Poland and Ukraine with UEFA – in a month in Kijow. Then we will negotiate changes of terms – Speech of Minister Jakubiak was awkward as she started from the statement that we won’t manage to be on time and have to call off the tenders. The world was informed that we are dispersed – says anonymously the member of PZPN.
Can UEFA give us the championship back now? – It states in the contract, if we do not keep terms of execution – says the chairman of PZPN, Michal Listkiewicz – Once, Columbia lost the South American Championship. But I hope for the best.
Listkiewicz “is worried that the past four months were wasted. Actually, nothing has been moved further”.