Stadium delay hits Poland's France friendly
WARSAW — Euro 2012 co-hosts Poland were left with egg on their faces Monday as a friendly against France had to be shifted to the capital Warsaw due to stadium-construction delays…
WARSAW — Euro 2012 co-hosts Poland were left with egg on their faces Monday as a friendly against France had to be shifted to the capital Warsaw due to stadium-construction delays in the Baltic port of Gdansk."Poland won't be playing in Gdansk. The game with France will take place on June 9 at 21:00 at Legia Warsaw's stadium," Agnieszka Olejkowska, spokeswoman of Poland's PZPN football association, said on her Twitter feed.Poland's meeting with les Bleus was meant to mark the gala opening of Gdansk's PGE Arena, one of four Polish venues for the European Championships.The game will now take place at a new stadium in Warsaw run by top-flight club Legia, where Poland are already scheduled to face Argentina in June 5 friendly.The PZPN acted at the behest of the police, who inspected the site to take stock of the risks of going ahead as planned."We couldn't have made any other decision. Our assessment was that we still could not give a green light for the location to be used. It's basically still one big building site," Gdansk police spokesman Sergeant Aleksandra Siewert told Polish news agency PAP."In our view, there would be a safety risk for people taking part in a major public event, so the stadium still can't play host to any such event, be it a football match or something like a concert," Siewert added.The problems, she underlined, centred on the current lack of access routes for fire engines or ambulances, emergency exits, first aid posts and cells -- the latter are in the spotlight as Poland tries to clamp down on hooliganism.In addition, the site was still full of construction material, she said.Infrastructure worries have been raised regularly since 2007, when European football's governing body UEFA chose Poland and Ukraine to host the 16-nation tournament.Euro 2012 is a crucial showcase for the region, marking the first edition of the high-profile competition behind the former Iron Curtain.A delay in Gdansk is therefore an own goal, notably because PZPN chief Grzegorz Lato had only three weeks ago p
last modification 2011-05-23 20:30:34
Add comment