Emergency service needed?!?

Polish fan scene

Since 90’s the polish fan scene started to be more formal and organised. Fans of almost each football team in Poland formed a legal and registered Fans

Association. Main goals for each Supporters Group are to improve the safety on the football

stadiums and change the negative image of polish football fans.

Fans Associations in Poland are not only focused on supporting their local team. They’re arranging charity actions, taking part in social and educational projects,

actively incorporate in the live of their local community.

EURO 2012 will be placed in four host cities in Poland: Gdansk, Poznan, Warsaw and Wroclaw. In each of this cities there’s an

active local Fans Association:

Gdansk – Lwy Polnocy – supporters of Lechia Gdansk;Poznan – Wiara Lecha – supporters of Lech Poznan;Warsaw – Stowarzyszenie Kibicow Legii Warszawa – supporters

of Legia Warszawa;Wroclaw – Wielki Slask – supporters of WKS Slask Wroclaw.

Part 1: Expectations

Chance to change the negative image of football fans

Cooperation with local authorities and national government

Thanks to EURO 2012 we have a chance to take part in whole range of projects that are more or less

concentrated on football fans. We are happy that local authorities and our government noticed that there’s no way to organize EURO 2012 in Poland without involving

polish fans in it, because we have the knowledge and experience that they need to make this event

magnificent and unforgettable for all European fans.

Improvement of infrastructure

New stadiums, training sport fields are essential for polish football and that’s the most important advantage of EURO 2012 for polish fans . Of

course it’s not only about the sport infrastructure that will be refined before EURO 2012, also the transport, travelling and tourist services are subjects that we are looking for to be improved thanks preparations of our country

to be the host of EURO2012.

The other advantage is that polish government started an project called ORLIK, which is a plan of

building new, modern, safe and free of charge recreational and sport complexes for teenagers and

children.

Promotion of physical education

Part 2: Fears

Increase of repressions directed in polish football fans

Polish government took EURO 2012 as an excuse to pass a bill about mass events that is in many places unfair for polish football fans. Although the government invited fans representatives, their argumentation wasn’t

really listened.

Increase of commercialization

The more popular football is, the more we see that for club owners it’s more about business than about love for this game. Club managers responsible for marketing are

trying to increase the income of the club by making the tickets more expensive, sell as much expensive

souvenirs and other services. The problem is that they seem to forget that football fans are homogeneous as it

comes to wealth. A lot of fans comes from poor and simple families, lot of fans doesn’t have a job or high

earnings.

We are concern that because all of those EURO 2012 preparations and laws we might lose something unique, something that other

countries might be jealous for – our vivid and spontaneous atmosphere.

Increase of the ticket pricesThat is really simple aspect. As we’ve said before we

are afraid that because of EURO 2012 and club owners aspiration for having bigger income, the ticket

prices might drastically go up.

What after EURO 2012?