Much criticism has been thrown UEFA’s way for their decision to award the Champions League final to Moscow.
But were the wrong to do so ?
In 2006 when associations put forward their bids, it was between Berlin, Seville, Moscow and Wembley. At the time, Wembley was unfinished, with major uncertainty over when it will be, so that could be ruled out. So that left a choice between two Western nations and one Eastern. Moscow lobbied hard, and got awarded. Logistically, it is not the greatest of choice, but the Luzhniki is an established stadium which held the 1999 UEFA final, so it is not a complete newcomer to these events.
Is there an argument that UEFA as a governing body have a duty to encourage growth amongst all its competing nations, rather than a continuous preference towards certain established nations and cities ?
What incentive is there for other cities to seek progress when all established routes are closed to them ?
Are these not the kind of attributes that people dismiss as ruining the Premiership due to the now established dominance of the top four ?
Of course, UEFA’s social responsibility is one thing that has not been too prominent through its history, often riddled by accusations of corruption and incompetence. Finance has always played a crucial role in UEFA’s thinking, and it’s believed that football commercially in established European nations is probably reaching their maximum, while Eastern Europe in particular severely lags behind. For UEFA to see commercially viable long-term growth, they need Eastern Europe to steadily catch up with the West. Equally the number of nations under UEFA’s banner in a strong position, give them and their delegates greater weight and prominence in World football.
So, a corrupt decision decided by other agendas, or a socially responsible decision assisting long-term growth of European football ?
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But the people who make these decisions all will fly in direct, first class all the way, will be guided through the special immigration areas, stay in the centre of Moscow at the plush Marriot, President or Marco Polo hotels at £1,000+ per night. They'll be treated like royalty, have a nice escorted trip around Red Square, before making the short trip to the stadium in armoured luxury limousines.
They'll come away thinking how wonderful the place is and not knowing what all the fuss was about.
Whereas the fans will have forked out over 1,500 quid to travel cattle class, have to queue up at immigration for about two hours, take an age to get to their chosen hotels which will almost certainly be completely outside of the area of the stadium, nowhere near a metro station. and vastly overpriced for what you get.
UEFA, FIFA, The FA, none of them give a stuff about the fans and probably never will.
Having said that before we criticise Moscow and the Russian officialdome too much. Imagine the reverse? Russians trying to get a Visa for the UK is just as complicated and getting in and out of Wembley isn't exactly a walk in the park. The underground system here is twenty times more expensive than Moscow and not nearly as well run. Beer, Hotel and Taxi prices in London are perhaps not as expensive, but not far off and would you want to stay anywhere near the Harrow or Ealing areas?
The decision was made in 2006, over a year before Platini was elected....
Overall, I have nothing against it being there. You can't keep having the final at the same place.
You get the impression that instead of Moscow going out of their way to host the final, those out there (or wanting to) are having to go out of their way to get there and see a spectacle
Again UEFA failed to think of the fans - Russian teams may have won the UEFA Cup a couple of times recently, but have made no great waves in the CL. If you look at the finalists, semi-finalists and quarter-finalists over the last few years they are predominantly drawn from a very small number of countries - Italy, England, Spain etc, and not from eastern Europe, meaning that with a final in Moscow it was likely that two sets of fans would have a long and expensive trip to make plus a lot of bureaucratic stuff to wade through, Russia only relented on the visa thing a few days ago and infrastructure in Moscow is not capable of supporting a large influx of fans. Moreover they have only just finished relaying the pitch, and we all know how good a recently relaid pitch is to play football on don't we?
As for UEFA trying to encourage football in Eastern Europe, I wonder how many people realise that Zenit St Petersburg are owned by GazProm-Neft, one of the richest companies in the world with a market cap of several hundred billion dollars? I think the money is already there, as Abramovich has proven with his takeover of Chelsea.
And just as we should criticise the authorities for ignoring the fans, how about some controls over the airlines and international hotels. Over three months ago I tried to book a flight and stay in Moscow for last week. Couldn't get a direct flight for less than 900 quid and even the cheap, 'transit via Berlin' airlines were double the usual price. The budget hotels were all charging £100+ per night over the two week period and you'd have needed a mortgage for the more upmarket ones, even without knowing who would contest the final.
Going in two weeks time and the direct return flight is less than £300 and he hotel is 60 quid a night.
The Russian OB will be protecting ManU and Chelsea from Russian hooligans as much as anything else - they are vermin
Even beggars were pulling knives on my mates when they refused money
Add that to the rip-off price hikes (TalkSport quoting £16 for a cheeseburger, £8 for a pint of lager) and it's a ludicrous situation
Being pedantic here, but i believe it was Oct 2006, and the 2009 final in Rome was announced at the same time.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/5407664.stm
Platini won the election to become President of UEFA in January 2007:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/6284365.stm
IE after the decision was made to take the CL Final to Moscow.
Part of UEFA role is to build the sport across Europe, and who hosts the CL final is important part of that, so going to Moscow is part of that, The IOC where happy to make Moscow a candidate city for the Olympics, and awarding Russia the 2014 Winter Olympics, so sporting bodies are very happy to go there.
I get the feeling that some will only be happy when the final is just rotated between England, Spain, Italy, Portugal, France and Germany.
What are you twittering on about now?
I don't think playing in Moscow is the problem, UEFA not getting a pitch ready for their so called showpiece event is in-excusable. The reasoning behind it was that the pitch was stuck in customs for Three days on it's way from Slovakia, so some of it died. The Visa issue I think the Russians have handled pretty well by saying showing you match ticket gets you in, which seems fair enough.
2005 Istanbul - ground to far away from the centre of Istanbul that no public transport could be linked to the ground.
2007 Athens - safety of the ground totallyy inadequate e.g unable to let people into the ground who had vaild tickets.
2008 Moscow - choose a stadium that normally has a plastic pitch on it, and once replaced with grass 'appears' rubbish.
The simple fact is the Final should be held at the ground where the best game can occur (the best pitch) around, and a stadium that is able to cope with the number of people attending the event.
I would limit it to Wembly, its our game.