UEFA admit to concerns over hooliganism and infrastructure for Euro 2012 finals

By Andrew Warshaw in Manchester

March 30 – European football’s governing body admitted today that recent outbreaks of hooliganism involving Polish fans did not augur well for the 2012 European Championship finals, and that some of the infrastructure in Ukraine may not be ready on time.

A week after Uefa boss Michel Platini was quoted as saying it may have been a mistake in hindsight awarding the tournament to the two nations and denounced the spread of fan violence across parts of Europe, UEFA’s chief organiser conceded the tournament faced a “huge image problem”.

Speaking at the Soccerex conference here, Martin Kallen, UEFA’s director of Euro 2012, revealed there were hooligan outbreaks at just about every league match in Poland.

The Polish Government recently announced new laws to tackle football violence similar to legislation brought in by Germany for the 2006 World Cup and Kallen said: “On the hooligan side we are concerned but I know the Polish Government is also concerned.

“They know they have a problem, they have a huge image problem, there are always hooligans around every match day in the league but the Government is making the right steps for the future.

Referring to last week’s violence in Lithuania when 60 Polish fans were arrested during a friendly, Kallen continued: “What we saw at last Friday’s match was not a very good picture to see happening in a stadium.

“We and the Polish Government are concerned, they are taking this seriously and will have changes in the next month.”

Kallen said he was not overly concerned about the finals themselves since the problem was more linked to club matches rather than internationals, last week’s friendly notwithstanding.

“For the Euro, different people will be coming to matches – there will be more families,” he said.

Marcin Herra, head of Poland 2012, insisted there would be “zero tolerance” for hooligans.

“The minority cannot spoil the event for the majority,” he said.

“In Poland the new legislation allows us to work much more precisely against those hooligans.

“We have one year to make sure that 500 people cannot spoil the event for one million people.”

Herra, speaking on the same panel as Kallen, said the new laws would allow the police to speed up the process of arresting suspected hooligans and dealing with them in court.

Kallen also admitted for the first time that some pledges made by the joint hosts would not be kept, but said there was no chance of either country being stripped of the event.

“Not all the projects promised will be 100 percent ready,” he said, identifying roads and public transport but not footballing priorities.

“We have no other way, each have to be ready in 2012.”

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