Taiwan firm selected to overhaul troubled Ukraine stadium

A Taiwanese construction company has won selection to overhaul Ukraine`s top football stadium in preparation for the 2012 European Championships, Korrespondent magazine reported Tuesday. According to DPA, Taipei-headquartered Archasia Design Group Ltd. will perform major repairs to Kiev`s troubled Olympisky Stadium, a structure whose reconstruction has been stalled for years due to a land ownership dispute in the Ukrainian capital.

The 94,000-seat stadium, built during the Soviet era and slowly falling apart, is the site of the scheduled final of Euro 2012.

Ukraine and Poland in April 2007 won rights to co-host the tournament.

Archasia Design defeated 14 competitors for the Olympisky Stadium repair contract, including bidders from Austria, China, England, Germany, and Ukraine.

Members of Ukraine`s Euro 2012 planning committee voted 21 out of 24 in favour of Archasia`s low bid.

The cost of the winning offer was not made public. Ukrainian sports media estimates have placed the price of coverting Olympisky Stadium into a first-class venue at between 10 and 50 million dollars.

Archasia is a building construction and design firm operating for 20 years in the Chinese and Taiwan markets. Sports development projects involving the company include structures in Taipei, according to the Archasia web site.

The announcement of Archasia`s assignment to the Olympisky project came one day after Poland`s and Russia`s presidents made a joint statement declaring their countries would run a championship to international standards.

Preparations for work on Olympisky Stadium began in early April, after nearly two years of wrangling in Ukrainian courts over whether or not a partially-built shopping centre next to the stadium might be dismantled.

The dispute was resolved after repeated executive orders by Yushchenko to tear down the shopping centre.

UEFA President Michel Platini and other senior UEFA officials in recent months had expressed worry at the slowness of Polish and Ukrainian preparations for the event, and even hinted Warsaw and Kiev might get the championship taken away from them, if work were not speeded up.

Both countries require massive cash injections and construction work, in order to host the event to the standards demanded by UEFA.

DPA