EURO-2012: Ukrainians expect more from the authorities (August 2009)

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03.09.2009

EURO-2012: Ukrainians expect more from the authorities (August 2009)

When speaking about the importance of EURO-2012 for Ukraine, most respondents believe it is primarily a matter of national prestige (42.3%), the creation of new jobs through infrastructure development for the championship (40.3%), and improvements in the quality of roads, airports, and hotels (35.9%). About one third of respondents also believe that hosting EURO-2012 gives Ukraine an opportunity to earn additional revenues (32.7%), to present Ukraine in a more positive light to Europe and the world (32.5%), and to ensure the development of host cities (29.8%). Somewhat fewer respondents pointed to other reasons for the importance of EURO-2012: nearly one quarter see it as a test of whether Ukraine is a civilized European state, while 18.6% believe it will provide an additional boost to sports and 16.5% to culture. Almost every sixth Ukrainian believes that EURO-2012 gives Ukraine new opportunities to join the European Union. Only 8.8% of respondents think that EURO-2012 is not important for Ukraine, and another 8.4% were unable to decide.
It should be noted that in Eastern Ukraine EURO-2012 is primarily associated with new jobs, in Donbas with the development of host cities, in the South with the opportunity to earn additional money, while respondents in the West, Center, and North focus mainly on national prestige. Ukrainians are generally opposed to abandoning the idea of hosting EURO-2012. Almost half of respondents (46.4%) tend to view such an отказ negatively, while only 9.3% would support giving up the championship. At the same time, one in five respondents is indifferent to whether EURO-2012 takes place in Ukraine, and another quarter were unable to decide. Support for EURO-2012 is highest in the North and East and lowest in the South. There is also a clear pattern: the younger the respondents, and the higher their education and material status, the more likely they are to support EURO-2012. Respondents of Ukrainian nationality support hosting EURO-2012 more than Russians. Women are almost twice as likely as men to be indifferent to the championship.
Ukrainians believe that the central authorities bear more responsibility for organizing EURO-2012 (35.1%) than local authorities (4.4%), although half of respondents believe that both levels of government share equal responsibility. When asked who is currently coping better with preparations for EURO-2012, 29.6% said that neither the central nor local authorities are coping well, 22.8% said that both are coping, 15.9% credited only local authorities, and 13.2% only the central authorities. Respondents in the Center and North assessed the performance of the central authorities more positively than that of local authorities, while in other regions the opposite pattern prevailed.
According to respondents, Kyiv and Donetsk are the cities best able to represent Ukraine at EURO-2012 and are most likely to host matches. A clear majority (63.2%) believe that Kyiv is the city that can best represent Ukraine, while Donetsk follows with 39.6%. About a quarter of respondents named Kharkiv and Lviv as cities that could best represent Ukraine (23% and 22.6% respectively). As for the likelihood of actually hosting matches, Kyiv’s chances were rated slightly lower than its potential (56.7%), Donetsk’s slightly higher (43.1%), while Kharkiv and Lviv were rated at roughly the same level (21.4% and 20.6%). Residents of the West and East believe that their own cities, Lviv and Kharkiv, together with Kyiv, can best represent Ukraine, although they rate Donetsk’s chances of actually hosting the championship higher.
The level of Ukraine’s readiness for EURO-2012 was rated by citizens at 2.4 out of 5, while Poland’s readiness was rated at 3.4. Respondents in the North and Donbas assessed Ukraine’s readiness higher than those in the West and South. Another trend is that the higher the level of education of respondents, the more critical their assessments were. Among the obstacles hindering preparation for EURO-2012, respondents primarily named traditional domestic problems rather than those emphasized by UEFA inspectors. The main obstacles were the economic crisis (61.2%), political crisis (54.4%), and corruption in government (50.5%). Infrastructure problems were mentioned less often: poor-quality roads (39%), slow stadium construction (30.3%), lack of modern airports (17.5%), insufficient quality hotels (17.2%), difficult urban transport (14.3%), and railway transport problems (8.8%). Residents of Donbas see the economic and political crises as the main obstacles, residents of the South emphasize corruption, while the West and North focus on slow stadium construction. Donbas highlights poor roads, and the East the lack of hotels and airports.
Forty-three percent of Ukrainians do not believe that Ukraine will meet most UEFA requirements by 30 November, while only 25.7% believe this will happen. Optimism is highest in the North and lowest in the South and Donbas. Ukrainians rate the chances of meeting UEFA requirements by 30 November about one third higher than Russians do, and the higher the education level, the more optimistic respondents are. Thirty-eight percent of respondents believe that R. Akhmetov has done the most to ensure the successful hosting of EURO-2012 in Ukraine; at least 30% in every region named him, except in Donbas where nearly 60% did so. G. Surkis was named by 21.6%. Other figures were mentioned less often: Y. Tymoshenko (9.2%), V. Yanukovych (8.3%), Y. Chervonenko (7.5%), V. Yushchenko (7%), Y. Pavlenko (5.6%), A. Yatsenyuk (2.5%), V. Lytvyn (2.4%), I. Vasiunyk (0.9%), and others (0.9%). At the same time, 11.6% believe that none of these politicians has done anything for EURO-2012, and 34% were unable to answer. If EURO-2012 were not to take place in Ukraine, most respondents believe that V. Yushchenko (57.8%) and Y. Tymoshenko (42%) would bear the greatest responsibility, while G. Surkis (7.9%), Y. Pavlenko (7%), V. Lytvyn (2.8%), and I. Vasiunyk (2.7%) were mentioned much less often.

Methodology

Fieldwork dates: 2–15 August 2009.
Sample size: 2,000 respondents.
Age: 18+.
Regions: all regions of Ukraine.
Margin of error: for values close to 50% — no more than 3%; close to 30% — no more than 2.6%; close to 10% — no more than 1.8%.
Regional breakdown:
- West — Volyn, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Rivne, Ternopil, Chernivtsi;
- Center — Vinnytsia, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy;
- North — Kyiv city, Kyiv oblast, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Chernihiv;
- South — AR Crimea, Odesa, Kherson, Mykolaiv; East — Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv;
- Donbas — Donetsk and Luhansk.