One would think that if you are going to award a major sports tournament to a particular country, you would at least take the trouble to see what the place is like first.<\/p>\n
Unless you’re UEFA, that is<\/a>:<\/p>\n The president of Uefa has hit out at “bandits and crooks” for the escalation of Ukrainian hotel prices ahead of the Euro 2012 football championships.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Bandits and crooks in Ukraine?\u00a0 No!!<\/p>\n Speaking in Lviv, one of the venues, Michel Platini said the rising cost of accommodation worried him, and called on the authorities to prevent it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Call on the Ukrainian authorities to prevent private businesses increasing their prices?\u00a0 Sorry, didn’t the Soviet Union end a couple of decades ago?<\/p>\n He added that some hotels were not respecting room contracts which had already been agreed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Contracts not being respected in Ukraine?\u00a0 No!!<\/p>\n “You can’t change (the price of a room) from 40 euros (\u00a333; $52) to 100 and then up to 500 just like that, from one day to the other, this just is not done,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Well, yes you can and yes it is.\u00a0 All the time.\u00a0 Clearly monsieur Platini has never tracked hotel room prices in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk before and after an oil and gas conference.\u00a0 Even those who were already staying in the hotels<\/em> were being hoofed out to make room for better-paying guests.\u00a0 This is standard practice all over the former Soviet Union.\u00a0 Where does Platini think he is?\u00a0 Paris?\u00a0 (Where, incidentally, the price of a hotel room is such that you’d think a major football tournament was there permanently.)\u00a0 How dim have you got to be think this wouldn’t happen?<\/p>\n Mr Platini is due to open a new airport terminal in the city later with President Viktor Yanukovych.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n An event at which there will of course be no crooks and bandits, oh no!\u00a0 He’ll probably find half the hotel owners are in the president’s entourage.<\/p>\n M. Platini’s not quite figured Ukraine out yet, has he?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One would think that if you are going to award a major sports tournament to a particular country, you would at least take the trouble to see what the place is like first. Unless you’re UEFA, that is: The president … Continue reading