The Polish relative of a west Fife councillor has spoken of his experiences of the World Cup in South Africa, and arrived in Dunfermline complete with two vuvuzelas.
Rafal Rosiejak, who is a relative of Joe Rosiejak, and national co-ordinator of hotels for PL.2012 the 2012 European Championships which will be held in Poland and Ukraine visited the country to assess how they have dealt with all aspects of the tournament.
He watched the England v Algeria and Netherlands v Cameroon games and said he noticed changes in South Africa from his last visit in 2008.
Rafal decided to visit Mr Rosiejak, who is one of the representatives for Dunfermline Central, on his way home from South Africa.
“I came to South Africa in November 2008 and there are massive differences now, especially in Cape Town and Johannesburg,” he said.
“My company was invited to go to South Africa to check on hotels and stadia for the European Championships in 2012, which will be held in Poland and the Ukraine.”
Rafal said he regards South Africa as an “amazing” country and that there has been a lot of development put in place to stage the World Cup.
He feels the trip has stood him in good stead for the Polish preparations for the European Championships in two years.
“It was interesting to see how the different fans react,” he said.
“I personally prefer the Dutch supporters because they treat the games like a big festival.
“I witnessed a new trend, which is fans turning up without tickets.
“There were a large number of people who were away from the stadium but wanted to be together.”
He continued, “In South Africa fans could have a drink of alcohol but in Poland you can’t do that.
“But everything is under control in South Africa.
“Everybody said that the hotel revenue was twice the amount they had taken in 2009, but they also said that the figures for customers dropped markedly the following day after a football game.
“This World Cup is a lot different from Euro 2012 as they had 32 teams, when we will have 16.
“So they needed more stadia and hotels in South Africa.
“For the European Championships we will have to organise teams’ base camps and a large sporting infrastructure.
“After the World Cup we expect many coaches and managers will come to Poland and look at the facilities.
“There are things to be done but we are on the right track. New stadia are being built to what we call elite class, seating 45,000 fans.
“And we are already thinking about how to accommodate fans in Poland using Europass so that people will be able to book a room, buy a train ticket in a city plus arrange their insurance.
“At the moment we are working on this and it should be ready by next summer as we expect the number of people looking for accommodation in December 2011 (when the draw for the finals of Euro 2012 is made) will escalate.”