Huge costs of preparing for EURO 2012 in Poland

It is estimated now that Euro 2012 - football championships to be held in Poland and Ukraine will cost Poland 95 bln zł. That is a tremendous wast of tax money spent on just one discipline that actually Poland is totally lousy at. Not to mention loads of money being paid to the corrupted national football association all the time. That kind of money could've been spent on something useful such as paying hospital debts or national deficit etc. Does anyone else have problems with this?

95 billion? That's 24 billion Euro - which doesn't seem like a realistic price. Anyway, if that's the quoted price, that'll include all the massive infrastructure projects such as new motorways, stations, airports, etc - stuff that benefits everyone.

Do you have a breakdown of the costs? I'm going to take a wild guess and say that 95% of that consists of infrastructure projects which are being funded in large part by the EU structural funds.

Olaf, stadiums are a tiny part in that sum. Most of that 95 bln zl includes highways, airports and so on. Things that should be build anyway. It is just summed up to make better press headline :-)

I agree the infrastructure must be built better, without doubt. But I doubt also that it will be done properly with 2012 deadline and it is not the need itself to improve roads etc. that is the main drive. That's what I don't like.

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  I found it on Polish portal
  

At least it sets some kind of deadline.

True, true, but right now the problem is more with constant road repairs on new roads. For example, I've been living in Krakow for nearly two years now and in that short time I have rarely seen one of Krakow's main exit roads - Zakopianka - being without traffic jams because of road repairs. And it is a new part of Zakopianka I am talking about, the one which was made in the time when I lready was here. So what they do is they repair new roads that they've just finished! And what cr@ppy roads they are too.

So a deadline is good, but the quality of road works is terrible. There's no proper QC. Anyway, EURO 2012 takes a lot of money that could be spent just on useful and necessary things. That was my main idea.

No argument there. Plac Grundwaldzki in Wroclaw is a great example. Why is it so difficult to have some sort of QC clause in the contracts?

Convex, I am sure there is, but it must be somehow corrupted. The road const. company wins a tender, then takes a sub contractor, who takes a subcontractor to do another part, and they hire another subcontractor for something else. They build bad roads, and after 8 or 15 months or whatever short time all of them have work again. So it is good money, you just have to pay some supervisor and everyone there sits happy...

It needs to be audited. The contract is between the government and the initial contractor to deliver. The company winning the tender should be 100% responsible for the product. Is anyone here involved in infrastructure projects? Would be interesting to see how that works.

Well, there were many discussions in Poland in time of Euro 2012 bid (so about three years ago) if it is good move, how Poland if at all will profit and all that. I myself were in doubt.

But right now there is no point to discuss that, the decission was made.

Besides, personally now I think it already paid off, because all those buildings programs were right in time when global economic crisis started. Lucky coincidence, but Poland didn't need to look for some big infra programs to stimulate economy because economy where already stimulated...

As for quality of roads, well it varies. It is not like that it is worse because of speed of work, it is rather worse in some places because of simple stealing. For example recently police arrested some subcontractors on A1 highway building site, because they were stealing at night base stones they were putting there at day and replaced it with mine waste, and they were selling it again to main contractor... No wonder than some of new roads have potholes shortly after opening.

But overall EURO2012 project speeded up things which were for years the biggest obstacle in Poland = bureaucracy. A few important laws changed and now it is easier to go through with some infra project. 70% of work for a new road are papers, building itself is just the act of finalizing of a long process. For years those 70% was one big "Can't be done". Due to Euro2012 it finally was unblocked.

- What do you mean, If I objected to this at that time should I shut up now because... what? It still is a stupid idea and I can say my opinion.


- These investments did not have that great affect on the economy I guess.


- The specially founded company "EURO 2012" to deal with all issues hire impressive number of... 250 people with very riddiculous salaries. Now, this is bureaucracy.

As you likely know, Olaf, some money can boomerang back at you. Money flows are funny things. Poland will recoup much of that. The stadiums need minor touching up, roadworks are well underway in many places and Ukraine is the one that must scratch its head.

Poland is now already through to the next phases and crowds will likely be large as a result. Lots of tourists will be attracted here and they will see just how impressive some parts of Poland are when they take the time to look around. The long-term benefits are there to be seen.

I wouldn't say it's necessarily throwing good money after bad. It will put Poland on the map and bring some much needed organisational skills into the equation too.

I mean, that whatever opinion anyone have it will not change anything... Off course I don't deny you to have an opinion :-) But right now only the end of the world in 2012 ;-) can stop Euro2012 in Poland. From that perspective in my humble opinion, better thing to do is to argue how to profit from this (if it is posibble)...


In one line you are arguing that 95 bln zl is tremendous amount of money and in the next you are "guessing" that this investment did not have great effect on economy... IMHO taking into account that those 95 bln are more or less 8-9% of polish GDP, then even if divide it by four which gives about 2% of GDP a year and if we remember that those money are directed at vital infrastructure investitions then I would say it is quite a stimulus just in time...


If you are looking for a stick then you always will find one. Maybe their salaries are riddiculous but on the other hand I cann't imagine managing the event of such a scale and complication where such big money are involved without dedicated supervision...

How to profit? More tourism, broader exposure for Poland and the recognition that Poland is capable of staging such a monumental event.

It's as the old saying goes in business, 'you have to spend money to make money'.

Olaf, welcome to the modern business world. Sharks will always find a way to cream profits when it is the spectacle itself which should take centre stage.

It would be nice to see some comparative info about polish Euro2012 company and London LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games):

london2012.com/about-us/the-people-delivering-the-games/the-london-organising-committee/index.php

On the one hand LOCOG claims that "The costs for staging the Games (£2 billion) are funded from the private sector by a combination of sponsorship, merchandising, ticketing and broadcast rights. " one the other the info on wiki says that 63% is from Central Government...:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Summer_Olympics#Financing

I know that among many users England is not the best example of how things should be done ;-) none the less we need some point of reference. What I can see in common, they have their equivalent of Euro2012 company...

I suppose the National Lottery revenue will count as from the Central Government?

Accoring to wiki, no:
"According to Games organisers, the funding for this budget broadly breaks down as:
* 63% from Central Government;
* 23% from National Lottery
* 13% from the Mayor of London and the London Development Agency
"

But I will gladly see some valid info from British expact on this forum. I've mentioned LOCOG here because I think that comparision of the two in many aspect similar events can be interesting.

one of those billion will be for wroclaw stadium alone. as i understand it some of the money is a loan and needs to be paid back. result: debt for the city for the next ten years.

i have no links or facts. just hearsay.

the company building the stadium said on the news recently that they were 'optimistic' about completion. at the moment it is nothing more than a steel frame. and there is no sign of the shopping centre that should accompany it.

Some happy bankers around, I'd imagine ;) Like a swarm to the action :( It's rather ironic that the word interest doesn't interest many.

True, all those stadiums are nice but costly. I saw somewhere that overall cost for Wrocław stadium is around 800 mln zł. From that 500 mln zł are financed via credit so we should add interests from that. The idea is that stadium will manage to generate enough profit to pay off this credit. It remains to be seen if stadium operator will be able to make this profit. Good thing is that stadium operator SMG is a big global company wich can bring big events to this stadium (like big stars concerts and so on). So in theory not all this debt will be financed by the city.

Anyway, that costs was and still is a reason for doubt for me, it would be nice to attend some events there though.


Actually after problems with previous main contractor, currently stadium is growing very nicely :-) :




Shopping centre is a different story. In fact is has not much to do with Euro 2012. It has a lot to do with local football team "Śląsk Wrocław" and the concept of financing of this team. It is rather unlikely that they will build it before Euro 2012 because they have a problem with bank credit for that. It is not investition of the city, which is involved though because it has shares in "Śląsk Wrocław", but is not a guarantor of a credit or anything like that.

- the Warsaw stadium is being built from the grounds, isn't it?


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That is what's wrong.

Olaf, you are not Polish and you have only lived here for two years. You can be unhappy about the amount of time you sit in traffic jams, but do not try to recreate the system. It was like that before you turned up and it will be the same when you are gone. Focus on the positive in Poland and your life and health will benefit.

Otherwise, it's gonna drive you fecking crazy...

I think this is a great thing for Poland to stage! and Seanus is right, money will come back in the form of tourists and new international companies; which will create new jobs for Polish people. Lublin will hopefully have an airport which could attract new money. Maybe in the future Poland will hold the Olimpics! hej czesc ludzie!

countries don't hold the olympics... cities do.

it would be a big fight between all those cities with new stadiums and warsaw probably winning.

i don't foresee a flood of investment or tourism just because of the footie.

investment in business is related to cash. tourism is related not only to the value of currency, but also a decent tourism industry. and Poland ain't up to it at the moment at least.

Not exactly!

yes. its a brand new ( very modern ) investment repleacing the stadion dzisieciolecia

Yes it is. Previous one was demolished completely. It will be nice stadium, current state of work:

source:
skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=63383241&postcount=19766

source:
skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=63236181&postcount=836

It's suppose to look like this:

source:
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadion_Narodowy_w_Warszawie

A lot of interesting info about actual state of preparations can be found here:
skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=466744&page=264

BTW. very nice movie about Wroclaw:
vimeo.com/14692724

YES! sorry for that slip stare druhu (wroclaw), I meant a city in poland such as wroclaw or lodz could hold the Olimpics one day!!hej czesc, although maybe one city would not have enough resources, so maybe lodz & warsaw!!

HAHAHAHA, my plane is famous! Middle one in the back row :)

Cool video by the way :)