Jens Nielsen is sitting in his Danish hometown of Esbjerg worrying about Ukrainian train tickets.
He’s visiting Lviv to watch his team play in the Euro 2012 football tournament, but says he can’t book a train back to Poland for his flight home.
At least Nielsen, a diehard football fan who for the last four years has organized trips abroad for Danish supporters, is still coming.
The flood of foreign fans that Ukraine expected for the tournament – officials boldly predicted one million – is under threat of turning into a trickle. Put off by overpriced hotels, poor infrastructure and the long traveling distances, many countries’ fans have not taken up the full ticket allocation for their teams’ games in Ukraine this June.
Danish media report that just over 3,000 tickets have been sold to Danish fans for each of the matches in Lviv, and only 1,761 for the game in Kharkiv, which is less than one-third of the allocation for the game.
Nielsen believes that if the Danish national team had been scheduled to play in Poland, four or five times more fans would have made the trip.
The lower number of fans could not only impact the economic benefits the tournament was supposed to bring to the country, but also reduce the international festival atmosphere that is a crucial part of the tournament.
England fans are also coming in smaller numbers than usual. Kevin Miles, a spokesman for the Football Supporters Federation, said he expected from 5,000 to 10,000 supporters to make the trip.
As many as 50,000 England fans followed the team the last time it qualified for the finals in Portugal in 2004, according to media reports.
“Ukraine is not the easiest country to get to. The distances of the travel by the country in between the venues are quite big, and the transport internally is not ideal,” Miles said.
High prices distracted the English fans as well. “At least £600 or £700 for a flight, and then to book hotel for £200 pounds for a room,” Miles said. “A lot of people don’t have much money.”
Another reason for fans staying away is a lack of information, especially about Donetsk in Ukraine’s east. “The countries where the tournament has been recently played are tourist destinations. For example, in 2004 [it was] Portugal. A lot of British people go to Portugal anyway for family holiday,” said Miles. “Donetsk could be a great place for a football match, but it is not necessarily the place you want to go to for a week’s holiday.”
Florent Egonneau, a 26-year-old bank employee from France, is coming to Kyiv for his team’s match with Sweden. He is planning to live in his friend’s apartment in order to avoid paying steep hotel prices.
Around 5,000 fans from France are expected in Ukraine, according to a forecast by the French embassy. This is much lower that the allocation of 8,000 tickets it is offered for just one of its three games in Donetsk.
Many Danes decided to stay in Krakow just across the border in Poland, despite all of their team’s group matches being played in Ukraine. They intend to travel to Lviv by bus and return just after the matches, and don’t plan to visit Kharkiv at all.
Dmytro Zaruba, the former deputy head of the State Tourism Service, agrees foreign fans may avoid Donetsk and Kharkiv because of poor infrastructure and lack of information about them. “They don’t know what to do at all on the days they are staying there,” he said.
Some fans may also have been put off visiting Ukraine by widespread stories – often exaggerated – of threats from racist hooligans.
Markiyan Lubkivsky, director of UEFA Euro 2012 in Ukraine, assured the Kyiv Post that none of Ukraine’s host cities would suffer a lack of foreign fans. “An unprecedented number of people will come to us,” he said.
Lubkivsky said he knew the English fans are not active in purchasing tickets, but that other foreigners will make up lack of them. “We have no problems with Swedes. A lot of Poles and Russians, Dutch, Germans will come here,” he said.
German fans, whose team will play in Lviv and Kharkiv, have bought about 6,000 tickets for these matches, according to German Football Federation. About 20,000 German fans are expected in Ukraine, the German Ambassador Hans-Jurgen Heimsoeth said.
Swedish Ambassador Stefen Gullgren told the Kyiv Post that about 20,000-25,000 Swedes are expected to come to Kyiv, where their national team will play all its group matches.
One of the largest groups of foreign fans will be from Russia, even though the Russian team will play all its group games in Poland. Deputy Prime Minister Borys Kolesnikov said Russians will make up half of all the foreign tourists to Ukraine during the tournament.
Experts are expecting a last-minute rush for tickets, which are still available. Around 400 tickets for the tournament were sold to the Danish fans in the last few days. Accommodation costs are falling, according to tourism expert Zaruba.
Some Ukrainians have taken matters into their own hands. They created a group called Friendly Ukraine, offering accommodation, airport transfers, interpreting and information services for free in order to counter the greedy image of their country. (See their websites at www.rooms4free.org.ua,www.2012well.com.ua and www.icanhelpu.com.ua.)
Nielsen, the Danish fan, said he was lucky to find two flats in the center of Lviv for him and his friends for a price only three times higher than normal. Despite all the troubles he hopes to “have a big party with the Dutch, Portuguese, Germans and especially Ukrainians” during the championship.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected]
