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Will EURO 2012 be a proud moment for Poland and its people or set back Poland 20 years? [86]
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.