Will EURO 2012 be a proud moment for Poland and its people or set back Poland 20 years?

I say it is a great advertisement for your country, you have after all beautiful cities and town squares, great looking women, relatively cheap beer compared to Western Europe and a party people, who like to drink and have a good time. As long as things are not overpriced for the football tournament and the weather is dry I think you will have a major success, also note that nobody wants to go to Ukraine, all the teams are I believe staying in Poland and travelling over for the matches, what does that say ??

Beautiful town squares - outside of that its usually run down with graffiti and concrete blocks for as far as the eye can see.

so far, 1 day into the actual matches, this tourney is going down as mostly known for RACISM and VIOLENCE..... (with a hint of horrible refereeing) ....

monkey sounds.... russian fans beating up polish security..... dubious red cards to aid the host team (which still flubbed it) .... not off to a flying start folks....

(oh, we won't even mention the outrageous hotels/taxis/ticket price gouging going on....)

better home for something spectacularly good to happen.... SOON...

Go back to England if you don't like it. You never post anything positive about Poland, so why you waste your time on here is beyond me.

Back on topic...

Well, after spending a most of the past week in Poland, I can happily ignore the (cough) "impartial" UK media's biased opinion of Poland. Not that I ever thought it would be any different, but still.

Take Krakow on Friday, for example: hundreds, if not thousands, of people in football shirts - not just Polish, but German, Russian, English, Irish, Dutch, Ukrainian, Czech, German, and probably a few others I forgot about. Groups wandering about in their respective shirts, some noisier than others (the English, naturally - especially the Newcastle fans lol)... but NO TROUBLE whatsoever. Can you imagine that happening in an English city?

Or Warsaw yesterday: lots of groups of non-whites (many, many more than usual) standing or wandering around, clearly there for football... yet they seemed happy and enjoying the atmosphere. In fact, I probably looked more worried, but that's because I know Warsaw pretty well (lol).

I also read a report in one of yesterday's Polish papers which suggested that over 80% of Euro 2012 visitors would return to Poland, and over 90% would recommend Poland as a holiday destination (I await the inevitable "lol which PiS-loving paper did you read that in?" insult, but I'm ready for it :p ). Unlike the UK, it's unlikely that anyone in Poland would attempt to divide the responses upon racial lines, but it tells you something that the BBC will never tell you - despite all this allegedly widespread racism/anti-Semitism/whatever, it hasn't put many Euro 2012 visitors off returning the country.

Clearly, the tournament has been good for Poland, and looks like it may be very good for future Polish tourism as well. And if you object to this, because you don't feel that Poland "deserves" this boost to its tourism sector, then you're welcome to take your holidays in Lagos or Port Moresby instead.

Surely a PiS-loving paper would be posting "TUSK TO BLAME : 10% OF VISITORS WON'T COME BACK" ;)

So far, so good I'd say. The ones who are objecting are, as usual, either moronic hooligans who couldn't afford tickets anyway or the usual PiS voting suspects.


Quite common among bitter expats who married a Polish girl - and who simply wants to stay in Poland.

lol :) But what you know what the usual suspects are like on here ;)


Agreed. I've had a love-hate relationship with football for many years, but I think I've come back a fan :0

Or came over thinking that Polish women would be begging for foreign men, but couldn't find one, despite being foreign :D

in conversation yesterday a question came up. which city will benefit from euro 2012 ?

the reply by all... Krakow

host cities spend the money and krakow takes the prize.

that may be true to a certain extent but I'm certain the host cities will garner their share of reward. eg many people came to Wrocław and saw what a great place it is that ordinarily wouldn't have come. Hopefully, they come back and/or tell their friends to come.

This goes beyond host gto achieve teh same infrastructrual progress.

I can imagine alot of people that visited Wroclaw will either have been before, only gone for the football or will never return. The Polish goverment seem to think that everybody who comes to Poland because of the football will be an instant Polish tourist.

I hear that Port Moresby is lovely at this time of year. Lagos, however, gives Radom a run for its money in terms of 'good place to send the mother-in-law for a holiday'.

A great deal of the Irish are amazed with Poland and will return. Many, many of them have talked about how filthy cheap it is, how much fun they've had and how they will definitely return.

I've lived in Poland for nearly 3 years and have been telling people in the UK this for ages but nobody want's to come. People just have a mindset of a communist country which can't be changed.

The fun they've had may partly be because of the football not totaly to do with Poland. And this may change on a second visit. Poland has an image problem which wont being addressed by a football tournament infact to anybody not coming here for the football. Poland's external image has been tainted by what the press around the world have been showing (head on train crashes, racism, hooligans etc)

All can be ascribed to growing pains.

I think with this party, the people of Poznan liked having the Irish around.

Its nice of Poznan to give us a goodbye party.

Indeed we did - the Irish were fantastic visitors. Yesterday was a sea of green on Stary Rynek!

(it's notable that when the Irish were there, there was barely a police presence...yet when the Irish went to the stadium and the Poles took over, suddenly the riot police appeared.)

I'm quite confident that EURO 2012 will be very beneficial to Poland. I can't speak on the racism issues because I don't follow soccer close enough to know how much of it goes on in other countries during matches between oposing countries but all in all I think it's been less than what people expected. Some black eyes and a few chairs thrown but not too bad, unless I'm missing some news articles.

What Poland needs to hope for is that all the new stadiums get put to use after the tournament ends. All that money spent, they should put it to good use. That is where the real economic payoff will come from. It will prop up existing businesses and create new ones.

I gotta say, a lot of people in the states are watching it. The time difference makes it tough but weekends, people are checking out the games. I went out to lunch last week and the restaurant had the game on, that surprised me.

Poland will benefit from a few extra KM's of motorway, bad press relating to football violence and racism has ultimately harmed it's external image around the world. The stadiums will lie like white elephants as the ekstraklasse wont pull in the crowds like other european leagues.....

How many arrests in Warsaw? The next time the Russians are in Warsaw there will be twice as many!!!

As well you seem to forget that there have been 6 football related deaths in Poland in the last 8 months. Ok the Irish have been well behaved but other teams fans haven't been so..look at Croatia.

Czech verus portugal or portugalsko.. i prefer to choose czech cause it's my favorite. so the czech you should change the strategy to deal with porto cause they are with latin style, and differ with englaand or germany. so please doing some exercises with brazil or argentina. till now the czechs are doing weell, so keep on doing it, keep on mental of champ. don't shrink your spirit, don't shrink your mental, keep on bigger and bigger,.. grab the trophy of triumph,..be the most counted national team in the world! ole ole ole ole viva for CZECH!...now the time for czech to be a champ!

Isn't it too early in the morning to be drunk?

I didn't forget anything, I just don't pay attention to soccer really. I was speaking from my own outside view but hey....people dying at games....hmmmm......that's more than a few black eyes.

I'm from Russia and I have already returned from Poland :(
I've been in four Polish towns (Wroclaw, Gdansk, Warsaw and Krakow) and found that Poland is really good country to visit. Except few things like roads that are under construction and fights in Warsaw everything was great!!!

I could not imagine that Polish people are so kind and friendly, especially with respect to Russians. You should be proud of your part of EURO. Many thanks. I will definitely come back once (or twice :))

Maybe some of your compatriates should have been a bit more kind to the Poles instead of marching through Warsaw, displaying the communist flag and that disgraceful banner at the match.

I think there are idiots in every nation.
I do not want to defend those people who displayed flags and banners, but marching... what's wrong with it? it is not only Russian idea to march to the stadium

What's wrong with it? Do you really need me to answer that question.... how many millions of Poles died after being sent to the Gulags?

Agree with Sebastian.
Bad roads is problem not only of Poland but in many other nations too.
Hooligans can be found in every country across the globe.
And win & lose are the two faces of the coin. So this is not an issue.