So, EURO 2012

I’m not a huge football fan, to be frank, but I like to watch a good game from time to time. Nevertheless, I think I’m going to revise my attitude a bit, at least for the next 5 years – UEFA EURO 2012 is going to be held in Ukraine and Poland. Wow.

Looks like Mr. Surkis (on the picture) – President of FC Dynamo Kiev and Football Federation of Ukraine has reached one of his favorite goals and scored hosting of the championship. It seemed here that for the last few months Mr. Surkis, a very successful businessman (so successful, in fact, that he’s even called one of the Ukrainian oligarchs), has spent all of his time flying around Europe, convincing people that Ukraine and Poland were the best countries to host the football championship.

But apart from football, this gives a very interesting perspective to the next five business years. In order to host the championship well, Ukrainian infrastructure has to be considerably upgraded. Roads, public transport, lack of accommodation, new stadiums – all this can hamper successful hosting of the games, meaning that during next five years all this has to be developed to a stage satisfactory enough to accept all the international public that’s going to come over. That’s a lot of business.

Take hotels. There is a huge lack of them in Kiev, so huge, that if you would look at the prices, you’d notice that they are very high for a country with average monthly wage (the table is in UAH, divide it by 5 to get approximate USD amounts) of less than USD 300. And these hotels are on average pretty bad and always full.

Situation is no better in any other infrastructural field, so there’s going to be plenty of work for everyone.