With hordes of Swedish fans due to arrive over the opening weekend of Euro 2012, Kyiv is working around the clock to complete a campsite promised to 5,000 of them.
A local supplier acting on behalf of the city had promised to provide a suitable space for thousands of Swedish campers, as well as internet access and catering, shower and toilet facilities.
But when Camp Sweden organisers arrived on Wednesday, June 6, they were dismayed to find that standards that fell far short of what they had been promised when they signed the deal in April.
"We had an inspection, and after that we wrote a letter to the city of Kiev and the Swedish Embassy," Camp Sweden organiser Ingo Soderlund told Reuters.
A visit to the camp on Friday by a Reuters television crew revealed stacks of unused building materials, as well as four-inch nails protruding through corrugated metal fences and newly-built shower blocks where the cement had not yet set.
There was no sign of the catering facilities or wireless internet that Swedish fans say they were promised.
“If it was Sweden and we put in a whole squadron of say 500 people to work, it might be done in time. But we’re in Ukraine so we’ll have to see what happens," Soderlund said.
Swedish ambassador Stefan Gullgren visited the Camp Sweden site on the island of Trukhanov in the Dnipro river, and said that he had received assurances that everything would be finished in time.
"I am glad to see that a lot has been done compared to two days ago, but we have to admit there are still things to be done," he told reporters.
"It has been promised that these tasks will be completed by the end of the day."
Kyiv city official Denis Rudnyk played down the delays in completing the camp site, saying that all of the essential components would be finished in time for the opening game.
"By one o’clock today (Friday) the first aid point will be working. There will be a doctor with necessary medicine and a translator," said Rudnyk, who was there to check on progress on behalf of Kyiv mayor Oleksander Popov.
"I think it’s all exaggerated," added Rudnyk. “We have done Trojan work – we’ve done more here in the last month than has been done in the last 15 years."
The Swedish fans already at the site said they did not have unreasonable expectations, and were looking forward to enjoying the tournament.
“We didn’t have the highest demands coming here," one fan from Gothenburg told Reuters. “We’re happy if we have some place to stay with our tent. If we have water and electricity, that would be OK."
As the work to finish the campsite continued around him, he said no-one would remember the camp site if Sweden win the final in Kyiv on July 1.
“If we win the whole tournament, it will have been a perfect summer," the fan said.
Sweden open their Group D campaign against co-hosts Ukraine on June 11.
