By the match Lech-Braga UEFA “gave Poles’ noses a flick”. “UEFA does not want to accept Polish improvisation in the context of the Euro 2012 – admits Jacek Masiota, a lawyer representing Lech.
More and more millions of zloties is spent on the Lech stadium and works have not been finished yet
The end of the line
Since October last year, UEFA checks irregularities at the Stadion Miejski (City Stadium) in Poznan. The facility was officially opened with the Sting concert and later on three matches of the European League were played. It’s just that every time UEFA had a lot of comments. Enough is enough. It turns out that the objections from Nyon are much more serious than those published in the official statement of Lech. UEFA, in correspondence with PL 2012 company stated that the stadium was prepared for free evacuation of only 25,000 fans, while there is room for 43,000 spectators. That is why, only 50% of tickets for the match of 1/16 finals (European League with Braga) can be sold.
Activists were frightened
One of the person who is familiar with the comments of UEFA said: “If we had taken into account all objections of UEFA, we would have to invest 100 millions of zlotys.” And already there is a shortage of 60 millions PLN to prepare the stadium for commercial use! What is more, the cost of construction originally amounted to 500 million zlotys, while in 2010 – after the next City Council decision – the amount increased to 713 million zlotys! It all started with the project by Wojciech Ryżyński, which has been in progress since 2002. Ryżyński got to work without experience in designing stadiums. Suffice it to say that in the autumn of 2010 the Lech activists were terrified by the fact that, indeed, there is a stadium but there are no ticket offices. They responded: “Why do we need ticket offices? You can sell tickets on the Internet” However, they were even more terrified …
They do not accept Polish improvisation
UEFA does not need ticket offices for EURO 2012 but it has huge requirements in many other aspects. Safety is the most important issue. On Monday, Jacek Masiota, a lawyer representing Lech will be negotiating with the UEFA about the consent for the sale of a set of tickets for the match with Braga. However, in the magazine “Football Cafe” Polsat Sport admitted: “I don’t think there are changes for successful results of the negotiations because EEFA does not want to accept the Polish improvisation in the context of EURO 2012”.
Interestingly Lech does not want to attach the city authorities. It looks as if they thought that sooner or later everything can be done. However, UEFA does not want to negotiate and tries to demand a lot. Hence, the penalty for Lech … Today UEFA strikes Lech, but, in fact, the target is the city which built a “trash”, in which the grass has to be replaced one more time. And this entails expenses …. Several hundred thousand zlotys again, but who cares …
There is no end…
The city issued a curious statement, stressing that “audit studies do not indicate that there have been irregularities affecting the safety or quality of the facility”. Of course, UEFA is more accurate. One sentence in this statement is very interesting, and this goes as follows: “We would like you to note that the implementation of the investment of the Stadion Miejski in Poznan was done in several stages. In particular we need to separate the preparation phase, including design, from the phase of implementation of essential construction works.” So the project sucks but construction is excellent, or vice versa?
And one more information. The newest stadium in Germany – Rhein-Neckar-Arena, which has 30.000 seats and where Hoffenheim will play matches – cost 60 million euro. Lech stadium already cost over 170 million euro, and there is still no end …