As Bulgarian football fans watch yet another football tournament without their national team’s presence, they might already be thinking ahead and wondering what can be done to ensure the team’s participation in Euro 2012 and – beyond – to 2016.
A simple remedy seems obvious: host the event!
Austria’s and Switzerland’s team performances were, at best, mediocre, hence their first round exits. So, obviously, the strength of the national team itself is not a prerequisite for the qualifying host(s).
While it may sound like an eternity away, preparations for Euro 2012 are already afoot. Or at least they should be. Poland and Ukraine are joint hosts for the next event. ‘On’ the playing field Poland are perennial qualifiers for Euro and World Cup competitions while Ukraine’s footballers often flatter to deceive. However, few can question their footballing intent – at least they are not Andorra or Luxembourg! ‘Off’ the field, though, it’s a different issue entirely and one wonders if the governing body of European football, Uefa, have had yet another ill-conceived brainstorm in choosing this pairing following the choice of Moscow as host city for the 2008 Champions League Final.
Someone omitted to tell Uefa that fans of potential Champions League finalists might well need visas. Someone also forgot to advise the Russian embassies of the procedure in such an event, so much so that even four weeks before the final there was no clear guidance on what documentation fans would need to enter Russia. Aside from being something of an outpost, reaching Moscow by air was costly for most fans and, obviously, travel across Europe by road or rail was a major undertaking. Still, ordinary fans are probably not high up on Uefa’s list of worries; Uefa VIP’s, sponsors and hangers-on, on the other hand, will have had things arranged long before the finalists were known and before the finalists’ own fans started hunting for tickets for both the match and the flights to get them there.
So what is the sense in choosing Poland and Ukraine as 2012 hosts?
For the first time there is the real possibility that Uefa might have to backtrack and move the event out of Poland and/or Ukraine. The Ukrainians seem prepared for such a scenario and are already calling the whole episode a national disgrace. It’s perhaps timely that Uefa, hidden behind the current 2008 match reports, released a statement announcing that their president, Michel Platini, will visit co-hosts Ukraine and Poland immediately after the 2008 event finishes and that UEFA was “monitoring the situation in Ukraine”.
Defined in simple terms, Ukraine still has time to fulfill its obligations for stadium criteria, but plans should already be at an advanced stage, something that is conspicuously not the case. The countries’ current stadiums are nowhere near good enough to meet Uefa standards for such an event. Perhaps worse, however, is the fact that the host cities – Kiev, Donetsk, Lviv and Dnepropetrovsk – do not have, nor will ever be in a position by 2012 to accommodate the expected numbers of fans. Currently, Kiev has just two international hotels and a chronic shortage of two, three, four and five-star hotels, as well as camp sites. Other cities have even less accommodation. Football stadiums can be cobbled together in a couple of years once the money is available. Constructing hotels in such a period, on the other hand, is not nearly as viable. Odessa is on the reserve list and that may be the only city capable of housing the expected numbers of guests. Ukraine also has road infrastructure that makes the Bulgarian network appear state of the art! The country has no proper highway network with just one highway stretching 250km between Lviv and the Hungarian border. A host of ancillary concerns ensue such as signposting in Cyrillic, the absence of tourist information centres and controlled transport systems between airports and cities. The list goes on.
Poland is much better placed with work in progress on all fronts, yet even here there are concerns that the schedule is tight and any delays could spell disaster. At least plans are well advanced for stadiums in Warsaw, Gdansk, Wroclaw and Poznan and the country has a reasonable supply of hotels – with many also in the pipeline. Its land infrastructure is also causing concern although there are plans (maybe over-optimistic) for a highway network to be built before 2012. Perhaps the biggest threat to Poland’s ability to execute the 2012 project is its political instability with governments often perceived as weak and vulnerable. As a nation they are capable but if politics gets in the way that’s another issue!
Therefore the joint Polish/Ukraine host agreement looks decidedly questionable. The alternative is open to speculation. It would be unsurprising, however, if some sort of contingency plan was already being formulated. Poland co-hosting with neighbours Germany would be an obvious bet. No visa issues, German stadiums and infrastructure both intact after a massively successful 2006 World Cup – a quick fix and an easy stress-free remedy for Uefa! Another scenario (which Uefa deny) is to move the whole event to Scotland who, unofficially, have been requested to draft plans. This may be a remote possibility but, as the saying goes, “there’s no smoke without fire”.
If Poland and Ukraine could even be considered as possible venues for such an event, why not Bulgaria?
Every four years we are subjected to the “let’s bid for the winter Olympics again” charade. The country duly submits its bid and bows out, gracious in defeat. Not that anyone ever expects them to even reach the final hurdle, especially with the amount of money (or lack of it) invested in the bid process. Still, media exposure and overly optimistic sense of opportunism sells apartments in ski resorts and gets free air time on global TV. The winter Olympics may come one day but the chances of hosting a Euro football event would appear to be far more remote.
Not that Bulgaria could do this alone. It would stand a far greater chance if it made a joint bid with Greece or Romania. For the criteria mentioned, Romania might prove to be a struggle but Greece would seem to meet all or most of the criteria required at this stage. What would these criteria be? Having suitable stadiums is the main issue. Bulgaria has two decent stadiums in Sofia and Bourgas that conform to a certain level of UEFA requirements and are used to host Uefa club and international games. These stadiums would probably require expansion and modification but this process is easier, faster and – one assumes – cheaper, than building suitable pitches afresh. Two new sites and stadiums would also be required, probably in Varna where plans are already in place for a new sporting stadium and in Plovdiv where building would need to begin from scratch. These are the main gateway cities for the country and Sofia, Bourgas and Varna are well served by airports. Plovdiv is one hour or so from Sofia Airport. The road network in the form of highways connecting all these cities will (one assumes) be finalised long before 2016. Work is already well under way on this part of infrastructure. The final ingredient is accommodation.
Bulgaria, unlike Romania but like Greece has, through its tourist product, a wealth of excellent hotels. Sofia already has 20 000 registered beds. Add to this the proximity of Borovets, where by 2016 one would expect in excess of 10 000 beds, plus Bansko – which is just two hours from Sofia and shortening in duration all the time as the highway to Greece expands – also probably able to contribute about 20 000 beds by 2016. Varna and Bourgas have huge accommodation areas. The mass of hotels littering the Black Sea provide a perfect base for football fans regardless of whether their teams play in Bourgas or Varna. A potential fourth location, Plovdiv, looks technically weak on accommodation issues but a closer look shows that the distance and time it takes to get to Sofia and also the southern Black Sea area means fans having to travel to Plovdiv would find it of little or no inconvenience. Plus, the ski resorts of Borovets and also Pamporovo are only roughly one to one-and-a-half-hours away from Plovdiv, again offering a perfect accommodation solution for Plovdiv-hosted games. Accommodation seems well covered not only with beds but with standards generally being high.
If Greece could be enticed into the equation one immediately thinks that both Athens (venue for the 2007 Champions League Final as well as the 2004 Olympics) and Thessaloniki are already geared up for such events in terms of stadiums and accommodation. The huge resort area of Halkidiki would provide extra bed capacity for Thessaloniki. Athens and its surrounding area already has a reasonable supply, supported by tourist stock from nearby islands. Two other locations would need to be included; possibly the third city Patra and – maybe – Crete. The latter has a decent football team, an existing stadium and, significantly, a huge numbers of hotels.
Therefore, superficially at least, it seems that most ingredients are in place. All that is required is to get Greece to come on board and for the Bulgarian Football Union to have the drive and will to show it can be done.
If one day, in the not too distant future, you see Bulgaria hosting Euro 2016 – remember you read the idea first in The Sofia Echo!