Euro-2012: foul play

As Oleh Blokhin had renewed his contract as manager of the Ukraine national soccer team, he held, together with the Ukraine Soccer Federation President Hryhorii Surkis, a press conference at Soccer House. From now on, Blokhin will be training the Ukrainian squad not until the end of Euro-2012, as was envisaged before, but until the end of the 2014 world championship in Brazil. The main task Blokhin was assigned is to go past the group stage. The national team of Ukraine, which plays in Group D, will begin the championship on June 11 with a match against Sweden. “Then we’ll be playing knockout games. We shall see. The main thing is not to repeat the way and the mistakes of the junior team, when it was tipped as winner well before the tournament but could not eventually even go out of the group stage,” Blokhin noted. The head coach added that everybody bears “colossal responsibility,” for the national team is playing at home.

About a hundred journalists “interrogated” Surkis and Blokhin for an hour or so. But the latter shed no light on some interesting and sometimes “ticklish” points. In particular, it is still unknown what cash prize the Ukrainian players will receive in case of a successful performance. After the press conference, Blokhin categorically refused to grant any brief interviews or make comments. By contrast, Hryhorii Surkis, President of the Ukraine Soccer Federation (FFU), was more talkative. He told The Day in an exclusive brief interview about what worries him the most on the eve of Euro-2012.

Mr. Surkis, you said so convincingly at the press conference that commenting on politics is the preserve of politicians, while the FFU, the UEFA organizing committee, and you personally should focus on the championship organization. But does it not hurt you personally that there is so much informational mud around the object of your “inspired work”? It would be perhaps right if you also take part in clearing this mud?

“Of course, it does. A country that made so many investments in infrastructural projects during an economic crisis does not deserve this. As for the investments, our state did not expect at all that it would have to shoulder almost the entire investment burden of the Euro-2012 project. In 2007, when we won the right to host Euro-2012, the state counted on its investment attractiveness and on the funds of private investors. And I am sure this would have happened but for the crisis.”

Do you have a sensation that a preplanned mudslinging campaign is being waged against Ukraine on the eve of Euro-2012? Naturally, there are some fair critical observations in the mass media, but foreign media very often stoop to spreading far from impartial information…

“There have been reports of this kind over all these five years. UEFA made rather an unexpected choice in 2007 – they looked for the first time at Eastern Europe which had never been a venue for European finals until then. As a matter of fact, it was a bold step to understand that Europe does not end in Vienna or Geneva. Naturally, this was unexpected for most of the Europeans.

“As I have been dealing with Euro-2012 in Ukraine for the past five years, I have closely followed the course of events since it was announced that Poland and Ukraine would host this tournament. Can you recall how much mud was slung at all of us and our country even at that time? I can remember Ukraine’s Ambassador to Hungary, Dmytro Tkach, phoning me to say that central TV reporters were coming to see him for a comment, for everybody was saying that it was a victory of the Ukrainian mafia because, obviously, Hungary and Croatia were supposed to be the true winners. I advised him to tell the journalists that if they applied the word ‘mafia’ to the three presidents (Lech Kaczynski, Viktor Yushchenko, and Leonid Kravchuk) and such world-famous and honored athletes as Irena Szewinska, Oleh Blokhin, Grzegorz Lato, Serhii Bubka, and Vitali Klitschko, the ambassador should be happy to be representing this ‘mafia.’ He heeded my advice and said this to the Hungarian TV people. There was applause, and the interview ended after the very first question.

“Historically, our country has been viewed as sort of a proving ground to test certain techniques and then say: look, everything is OK in Europe and so bad in Ukraine. I cannot assure you that everything is nice in Ukraine, but I can say for sure that in Europe, too, things are not always OK, but there is no fuss about it.

“I do not think I should comment in some way on what politicians are saying. Why? Because I myself have been in politics for many years and I know there are certain dirty things which one may use to hype himself up.”

In other words, when the press began to write about three weeks ago that Euro-2012 might be relocated from Ukraine to Spain or the tournament might be postponed for a year, and so on, you were 100 percent sure that this would not happen?

“I am perhaps the most knowledgeable person because, in addition to holding the office of president of the Ukraine National Soccer Federation, I am also member of the UEFA Executive Committee. And, believe me, it would not be so easy to win and then retain the right to host the championship if we were not aware of all the risks that were and still are accompanying us.

“And, tell me, would the Union of European Football Associations be prepared organizationally and technically to transfer the tournament to another country just three weeks before the beginning? It is impossible.

“Moreover, UEFA is not doing so not only because it is impossible, but, above all, because there are certain principles based on solidarity, justice, and, after all, interest of all the 53 national associations (which in fact formed UEFA) in that nobody’s, including the Ukrainian federation’s, rights be infringed. For we, Ukrainians, have made a lot of efforts to prepare this championship. For this reason, I would not like to comment on somebody’s thoughts or even statements about relocating Euro-2012 to some other country. Firstly, it is not realistic. Secondly, there is such thing as corporate responsibility and ethics.

“The media reported two weeks ago that my Spanish counterpart Angel Maria Villar said that if UEFA decided to hold the tournament in another country, he would not mind Spain hosting it. The Russian RIA agency was the first to announce this news. Following this, journalists began to phone in and ask if I had heard anything of the sort and what all this meant. Naturally, I answered that I had heard nothing of the kind. Then I called Mr. Villar (he was, incidentally, in Warsaw at the time, where he conducted, together with [UEFA’s Euro-2012 director] Martin Kallen, a seminar for Euro-2012 referees) and asked if he had told anybody at least something of the kind. He assured me it was nonsense and he had not spoken to journalists at all.”

Was this information denied after your phone call?

“The agency that had spread this information removed it from its news bulletins.

“When this kind of rumors come up two or three weeks before [the championship], one should be guided by elementary logic to analyze them. For it is clear that even if UEFA had plans to strip Ukraine of the participant or host status, it just would not have been able to do this physically. Besides, is there anything wrong in this country? A military conflict…?”

…Terrorist acts in Dnipropetrovsk whose organizers and perpetrators have not yet been found.

“I will tell you frankly that terrorist acts occur in Spain, too. I am expressing my sympathy to all those who suffered from this in Dnipropetrovsk, Spain, or any other country.

“Or take the 2016 European Championship to be held in France, where 24 teams will compete. Is there no unrest there from time to time?

“All we can say today is: we wish this championship to take place so that the people who will visit us can see that we are a normal country, that we are normal people who are ready to help every foreign guest. I wish Euro-2012 guests would dream of coming back to this country over and over again and tell their relatives and friends about Ukraine.”

Finally, can you, as a member of the organizing committee, say which of the two countries – Ukraine or Poland – is better prepared for Euro-2012 with three weeks to go until the kick-off?

“Polish journalists asked me the same question in 2008, when we were opening a stadium in Dnipropetrovsk. They said: you are opening stadiums, while we still don’t have any. I replied that they already had good airport terminals, while we did not.

“Over all these five years we have been competing with each other and trying to meet all the guarantees and commitments laid down in the agreements we signed. We must admit we have failed to do everything. Neither Poland, nor Ukraine managed to fully carry out the infrastructural projects, in spite of our promises or even guarantees to UEFA. But UEFA is staffed with normal people. They take into account the past crisis. Besides, even five years of continuous work are not enough to surmount the barriers that have come up during this period of time.

“I will be happy if the championship opens on June 8 and nobody doubts that the tournament has begun and Ukraine takes on Sweden on June 11. And nobody will be asking whether or not the championship will take place. It will by all means!”