WARSAW (AFP) - 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 played down concerns, and local authorities had also said there was nothing to worry about.
Officials moved swiftly to put things into perspective, saying the PGE Arena would be ready by June 30.
"That was our original commitment to UEFA, and in no way is that date under threat," said Ryszard Trykosko, head of BIEG, the Gdansk municipal company in charge of the project.
Gdansk city officials said they hoped to benefit from another match-switch in the event that Warsaw's new national stadium—separate from Legia's ground—is not ready to host a September 6 friendly with Germany.
Poland's first Euro 2012 stadium, in the western city of Poznan, opened in September last year.
After Poznan, Gdansk and Warsaw the final ground, in the southwestern city of Wroclaw, is due to be ready by October.
The championships kick off in Warsaw on June 8, 2012 and end on July 1 in Ukraine's capital Kiev.
Both hosts have an automatic berth, and so must rely on friendlies to prepare for the real contest on home turf.
Fans hoping for a revival of Polish football's 1970s golden age are nervous as the current side fails to inspire, upping the pressure for next month's matches.
Ukraine's four stadiums are located in Kiev, the western city of Lviv, Donetsk in the east, and Kharkiv in the northeast. Only the latter two are ready, amid similar construction headaches.
"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 played down concerns, and local authorities had also said there was nothing to worry about.
Officials moved swiftly to put things into perspective, saying the PGE Arena would be ready by June 30.
"That was our original commitment to UEFA, and in no way is that date under threat," said Ryszard Trykosko, head of BIEG, the Gdansk municipal company in charge of the project.
Gdansk city officials said they hoped to benefit from another match-switch in the event that Warsaw's new national stadium—separate from Legia's ground—is not ready to host a September 6 friendly with Germany.
Poland's first Euro 2012 stadium, in the western city of Poznan, opened in September last year.
After Poznan, Gdansk and Warsaw the final ground, in the southwestern city of Wroclaw, is due to be ready by October.
The championships kick off in Warsaw on June 8, 2012 and end on July 1 in Ukraine's capital Kiev.
Both hosts have an automatic berth, and so must rely on friendlies to prepare for the real contest on home turf.
Fans hoping for a revival of Polish football's 1970s golden age are nervous as the current side fails to inspire, upping the pressure for next month's matches.
Ukraine's four stadiums are located in Kiev, the western city of Lviv, Donetsk in the east, and Kharkiv in the northeast. Only the latter two are ready, amid similar construction headaches.
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