The Ukrainian war between the president, prime minister and parliament and Euro 2012 in the background is gaining in strength.
Viktor Yushchenko has once again refused to sign the law on the preparations for the tournament, and thus he blocked the payment of the money. Local authorities throw down their arms and state that without government support there will not be a cup-final in Kiev.
The Government of Ukraine, which bears the results of the economic crisis is seeking money wherever to save the Euro 2012. There are not so many opportunities. One of the most serious opportunity was to be a national bank, or rather its financial reserves. Of these, the Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko wanted to “snatch” almost 10 billion hryvnia in order that the biggest sport event in this country not resulted in a failure but without success.
On the way, once again, stood President Yushchenko, who is for several months against the government plan. First, he vetoed the law on the preparations for Euro 2012 and when this was rejected he officially announces on Wednesday that he will not sign the document. As a result, the Ukrainian funds for preparation for Euro 2012 are unavailable, the time is passing by and local authorities throw down their arms. They are not able to take big infrastructure projects and without roads, hotels and airports, the tournament will not take place.
Yevhen Czerwonenko, Mayor of Kiev responsible for the organization of Euro 2012 in the Ukrainian capital in a recent interview admitted that without financial support from the government the final matches will not take place in the city. – We did not receive any financial assistance from the state and the city itself is not able to tackle it – argued Czerwonenko in talks with LIGABiznesInform.
In his opinion, all attempts to gain a capital through the authorities in Kiev are torpedoed by government officials. – There is already a real nonsense – says Czerwonenko without hiding irritation. We are inviting investors who are willing and have money to build hotels with a view to the championships. We introduce them to the government program and what they hear from the government official is that the fact that “they signed agreements with Czerwonenko is irrelevant as long as my interest is not accepted you will not be included in the government program”.
Time is passing by so quickly but we still do not know where does the government take the money from to prepare for championships in a proper way. And there is really not much time left. UEFA will decide on the cities where the championships take place at the beginning of December.
However, in recent time other worrying signs have come to light, as well. At first, a secret report of UEFA was revealed, in which it was stated that there was no chances that the stadium in Lviv was prepared on time.
Fans also contributed to it causing a row at the last elimination to the World Cup with England, thus showing how bad is the security system. This was pointed out to Ukraine by the British media.
Martin Kallen, chief executive of Euro 2012, said that he saw progress in Ukraine’s preparations for Euro … but he said the same thing in May when UEFA decided on the number of host cities. As a result, Kiev can only be sure of having the championships and, yet, without a cup-final.
