Euro 2012

National Stadium in Warsaw, the main arena of the Polish part of the European Football Championships in 2012 will be ready as planned in June 2011 in spite of the problems related to severe winter – ensures National Sports Centre.

Polish-Ukrainian championships will start in two years on Monday.

The facility, estimated to invite 55,000 spectators, will become a sport card of the capital. During Euro 2012 an opening match, one quarterfinal and one semifinal match will be held. Here, in the future official matches will be played by the Polish team.
Very difficult weather conditions during the last winter hampered the construction of steel structure of the stadium and, as a result of this, the deadline of this stage of works was moved by a month, from June to July this year.

- Taking into account expert’s reports we accepted to postpone the deadline of the completion of the steel structure. At the same time we expect full mobilization of contractor and designers and we want to other works go quicker – stressed the President of the National Sports Centre Rafal Kapler.

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CNN’s new series i-List takes you to a different country each month. In June, we visit Poland focusing on changes shaping the country’s economy, culture and its social fabric.

Warsaw, Poland (CNN) — Football fever is already gripping Poland ahead of co-hosting the European Championships in 2012.

Despite the national team’s absence from the World Cup in South Africa, the country’s sports fields are packed with children and amateur footballers getting into the mood.

When Poland and Ukraine host Euro 2012, they will be the first Eastern European countries to do so.

Four cities in Poland will host matches: Warsaw, Gdansk, Wroclaw and Poznan. Warsaw has the largest stadium with a 55,000 capacity.
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On April 18, 2007, the head of UEFA, Michel Platini mentioned Poland and Ukraine as the hosts of the European Championships in football to be held in 2012. Below we present the current status of works concerning major facilities being prepared for Euro 2012. We mean stadiums.

Three years ago euphoria broke out in Poland when Michel Platini took out from an envelope a card with the words “Poland and Ukraine.” The joy in Poland, resulting from granting such a prestigious event did quickly turned into fear. Questions “whether Poland will manage to prepare everything for Euro 2012 on time?” went hand in hand with the voices of “eurosceptics” who argued that we would not have managed to prepare an adequate infrastructure.

The voices doubting that Poland would bear the burden of preparations for the championships have practically disappeared after the start of construction of stadiums, prepared specially for the championships. Arenas constructed very quickly, subsequent resolved tenders and voices of the UEFA representative ensuring that in Poland all works run in a satisfactory way, resulted in a change in the attitude of Poles to organize the tournament. And the question “whether Poland will manage to prepare everything for Euro 2012 on time?” was replaced with the question “how will Poland organize Euro 2012?”.

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Polish Energetic Group paid 35 million PLN for the takeover of the name of the stadium which is being built for Euro in Gdansk. Lotos competed with PEG until the very end. Polish companies are slowly discovering naming rights – the sale of rights to name real estate, which is norm in Western countries.

In hockey NHL league as much as 90 % of clubs have facilities with sponsored names. In basketball NBA league it is 79 %. The club of American football league, Houston Texans gets $10 billion annually from Reliant Energy, one of the biggest US electric energy producers, for playing on Reliant Stadium. The contract is binding until 2032.

Also Germans make quite a lot of money on naming rights. In Bundesliga almost every club plays on the stadium, to which the wealthy sponsor lends his name and logo. Bayern Munich, thanks to playing on Allianz Arena instead of Olympic stadium, as it had done before, enriches its account by €6 million every year. Arsenal London gets £3 million from Emirates Stadium. Even Czech deal in names. Sparta Prague, after signing the contract with Toyota, earns 70 million CZK (10 million PLN). And it plays on Toyota Arena.

We start chasing

Although we are nowhere near to world sports leaders, the example of Gdansk shows that Polish moved into the race.

- In our opinion, Polish market of rights’ sale and facilities’ commercialization in view of Euro 2012 will be worth even 300 million PLN – tells “Subway” Wojciech Majeran, the managing director of Ciszewski Sports Marketing agency. It is this firm that is behind the sale of rights to the name of the hall in Łódź, which was built this year, to Atlas company. In this hall there were played e.g. this year’s Eurobasket matches and Europe championship in women’s volleyball. The contract, signed in September for five years, guarantees that Łódź will get one million PLN annually from Atlas.

- It was the first classic example of naming rights in Poland. It has never happened before that a professional consulting office was engaged in the case – says Maciej Wernicki, the worker of the firm.

The first case of including the name of the sponsor in the name of the facility was recorded only a year ago. In July 2008 a cycling velodrome built in Pruszków for this year’s world championship was named BGŻ Arena. But BGŻ Arena like football’s Dialog Arena from Lubin or volleyball’s Winiary Arena from Kalisz are not the classic examples of naming rights since BGŻ Is a sponsor of Polish Cycling Association, Dialog is the owner of Zagłębie and Winiary has supported volleyball players from Kalisz for a long time.

Wojciech Majeran: – There will be more and more contracts. We ourselves work on two other transactions which will be finalized next year.

Optimism of the experts is not weakened buy the fact that great companies that would like to buy names of stadiums on Euro 2012, will not be able to display their logotypes since the championship of this rank have their regular sponsors, chosen by football centres. Therefore during the World Cup in 2006 in Germany, Allianz Arena was officially called FIFA World Cup Stadium in Munich, and AOL Arena from Hamburg – FIFA World Cup Stadium in Hamburg. However, those names were only used by the organisers of the championships. For fans and media, Allianz Arena remained Allianz Arena, an ultramodern facility inseparably linked with a titular sponsor.

A half million on the stop.

- Modern stadiums become the sanctuaries of brands, and strenuously built positive atmosphere of shows will ensure every great company such an interaction with fans as no advertising campaign in TV or the Internet would give – convinces Majeran. – Name or logotype not always need to glare straight into the eyes. Sometimes it is enough to count on the colour which fans associate unambiguously. This is the most important thing – adds Wernicki.

This rule applies not only to stadiums but also railway or underground stations. – Euro 2012 is a great chance to display the skills, even for these cities in which the championships will not be played, such as Cracow, Katowice, Toruń or Lublin – assesses Majeran.

Wernicki, especially for us estimates the value of a model underground station Politechnika. – Calculating the cost of obtaining rights, 17 various aspects of evaluation are taken into account. One of the most important ones are the location of stop and attractiveness of its closest surrounding. It is obvious that the station located in the centre of the city and neighbouring on monuments and amusement parks will be the most attractive one. By my calculation, the price for the naming of a stop may reach even a half million PLN per year – claims Wernicki.

One of the most modern, the largest and the most functional facilities in Poland. Football stadium in Letnica, the best one.

Football stadium in Letnica was designed as a multi-functional facility, in which apart from international league and cup matches, there will take place concerts, conferences, congresses etc.

It is all possible thanks to the sizes the stadium is going to have, materials used when building and functional rooms.

The stadium is located on the plot with the surface area 33,9 ha, of which the usable area is 36,600 m2 and after finishing the construction it will reach sizes: 236 x 203 x 45 m. The cost of building the stadium is assessed at 645 million PLN. The cost of its equipment will be also added.
During the league matches the stadium will be able to accpet 44 839 spectators whereas during the concerts – 45 319. (read more…)

The new contractor, Max Boegl company has taken over officially and formally the construction site in Wroclaw stadium.

According to the contract regulations, the substitute investor, Wrocław 2012 company has formally handed over the construction site to a new contractor – Max Boegl company.

The note of construction site handover for Max Boegl company was signed by Astrid Wardemann, the contract’s director. The company undertook to begin preparations to further building works, which was start at the beginning of March, immediately after the takeover.

Up to that time the new contractor will prepare its own temporary facilities and indispensable documentation – schedules or detailed designs. The declared date of stadium commissioning has not changed – June 2011. (read more…)

Wrocław, despite the delay in construction of the stadium not only will not lose the possibility to organize Euro 2012, but apart from three group matches it may obtain right to play one of the championships quarter-final meetings.

For the time being, UEFA decided that the Euro 2012 opening match will be played in Warsaw, and the final of championships in Kiev. It is also settled that semi-finals will also take place in these cities. However, the unsettled question is still the place of four quarter-final matches. At some websites devoted to Euro 2012 it is said that Gdansk is supposed to be one of these cities but this information is out of date and not officially confirmed by UEFA.

It was initially assumed that UEFA authorities would indicate cities which will be given the right to organize quarter-final matches during the meeting of the UEFA Executive Committee on Madera in December 2009. However, at that time, they postponed the decision. Finally, UEFA was to inform about it on last Sunday in Warsaw during the draw for qualifying groups. But it did not happen – the decision has not been taken again and it is not known when it will.

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Preparations for the construction of the stadium’s roof are underway: the first of 72 huge elements has arrived from Italy.

On Thursday the first of 72 elements of the inner ring truss arrived from Italy, one of the main elements of the roof. The element is over 12.5 meters long and weighs 48 tons.

First attempts at laying out the concrete for the floor construction on level +1 have begun, over the main entrance to the stadium. Work on the foundations under the columns of the steel roof is being done under a heated tent.

48 out of 72 steel support pillars for the roof’s construction have also arrived. Each element weighs 3.5 tons. The steel construction’s assembly will begin in March.

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In Poznan, Gdansk and Wroclaw people are happy that thanks to Euro 2012 they will have a modern stadium for 40 thousands of spectators.

At the same time, activists of the Lech, Lechia and Silesia clubs are worried and wonder what to do so as not to make the tribunes empty during the top league matches.

A 40-thousandth facility occupied in the middle looks pretty gloomily. It will be better if all seats of the 15-thousandth stadium are occupied with spectators – said Michael Lipczyński, marketing director of Lech. In the last season Ruch Chorzow played at the Silesian Stadium.

Over 40 thousands of people watched the match only with Górnik Zabrze, others had lower results.

Will the tribunes of new stadiums after Euro 2012 be occupied at all during the matches of Lech, Lechia or Silesia?

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On Monday morning, lifting of the 400-tonne truss, one on the elements of roof structure, was supposed to begin.

The construction has to be lifted by three cranes excavators at the height of 58 meters and placed on two already mounted trusses. Meanwhile, works have not yet begun because builders of the Poznan stadium again have problems with the installation of roof construction.

Ryszard Dembinski, chief executive of Euro Poznan 2012, states that such a situation will no affect the deadline of returning Lech players to the stadium at Byłgarska street. Lech players were supposed to play their first match at the end of September, then it was 21 November and finally Kolejorz in Poznan is to play in March next year.