Euro 2012 organisers aiming to show world that they will be ready in time

By Andrew Warshaw in Donetsk

June 6 – Organisers of Euro 2012 in Ukraine and Poland are cranking up the publicity machine a year ahead of the finals with an intensive show of force aimed at showcasing the positive elements of the controversial joint hosts.

An unprecedented “one year to go” media tour is currently under way, climaxed by celebrations on Wednesday (June 8) marking exactly a year before the event gets under way in Warsaw.

UEFA President Michel Platini has been at pains to convince a sceptical public that selecting Poland and Ukaine was not a gigantic mistake.

Contrary to some reports, Platini will be conspicuous by his absence at Wednesday’s joint celebrations in Kiev and Warsaw, his place taken by UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino.

Lviv, Ukraine’s western most host city 70 kilometres from the Polish border, has long been Platini’s greatest concern and was the starting point for 50-odd reporters .

Lviv will host three Euro 2012 group games and officials are keen to play down reports that the massive infrastructure needed will not be completed on time.

A new airport terminal and runway are among ongoing priorities – the current single terminal is desperately primitive – along with a new 34,000-capacity stadium.

Around 1,000 construction workers are operating flat out on the stadium site round the clock, trying to make up for lost time.

But one look at the project, with swathes of building work still in need of attention, and you can see why there are considerable doubts whether the stadium will be ready for a proposed friendly against Austria in November, having already missed one key deadline.

“I admit the Lviv stadium is a challenge,” tournament director Martin Kallen told insideworldfootball as reporters toured the venue.

“It may be the Austria game has to be switched to somewhere else but the stadium will definitely be ready by the finals.”

Which ever team ends up playing in Lviv, their fans will enjoy a veritable feast of architecture and culture, rivalling any city in Eastern Europe.

The place is simply an undiscovered treasure chest of beauty.

But 30 hotels do not seem quite enough while racial and political tensions lurk in the background.

The local Mayor is keen to play down the threat of unrest but last month a group of neo-Nazis interrupted a victory parade of war veterans (pictured), creating considerable provocation and sparking fears of revenge attacks by Russian fans next year.

And clearly, whilst most Ukrainians embrace the tournament, there is still a minority who do not.

On a brief walking tour of the city, passive objectors held up placards protesting against having the finals in Lviv.

Having said all that, there is undoubtedly a mood of growing confidence for the first ever major championship to be held in Eastern Europe.

Ukraine’s organisers are bending over backwards to accentuate the positive even if some, perhaps understandably given the cultural differences with Western Europe, tow the party line.

And let us not forget one important point.

Similar doubts were expressed prior to the World Cup in South Africa last year, only for the authorities to get most things right in the end.

After Lviv, reporters were flown to the industrial city of Donetsk, home of 2009 UEFA Cup winners Shakhtar whose spectacular training ground on the outskirts of the city, bankrolled by their billionaire owner, Rinat Akhmetov, would put many of the leading western clubs to shame.

Six other cities follow, each in a different state of readiness but all eager to disprove the theory that selecting Ukraine and Poland, especially the former, was too great a gamble for the second biggest football tournament on the planet.

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