PRESS KIT FRIENDS OF EURO 2012 PRESS KIT FRIENDS OF EURO 2012 Poland and Ukraine are writing a new chapter in the history of the UEFA European Football Championship. To generate further excitement and to get Poles and Ukrainians involved, the local organising committees (LOCs) have launched the Friends of UEFA EURO 2012 promotional campaign. One hundred people from each of the host countries will receive the honorary title of Friend of UEFA EURO 2012. Half of the Friends of EURO will be public figures and celebrities, while the remainder will be citizens of the two host countries selected through various competitions. Children will have the opportunity to show off their artistic skills in a drawing contest organised in different age categories. The subject will, naturally, be the organisation of UEFA EURO 2012 in the budding artist’s home country and how they feel about it. In other competitions, adults will have the opportunity to express their opinion on the importance of UEFA EURO 2012 and their thoughts on the tournament slogan Creating The Future Together. The campaign begins to coincide with the start of the UEFA EURO 2012 qualifying competition and runs until 8 June 2011, one year to the day before the final tournament gets under way. Regular announcements concerning competition winners and new nominated public figures in the exclusive group of Friends of UEFA EURO 2012 will be made on www.uefa.com/uefaeuro2012. The competition winners will receive an assortment of EURO-branded material, ranging from caps and polo shirts to rare collector's items such as Friends of UEFA EURO 2012 pennants and pins produced in limited and numbered editions. At two special ceremonies staged on 3 September in Kyiv and on 4 September in Lodz to kick off the campaign, the names of the first four public figures in each host country have be announced. For additional information please contact: In Poland: Euro 2012 – Polsky Sp. Z o.o. Juliusz Gluski – Media Relations Officer Mobile: +48 797 08 31 03 [email protected] In Ukraine: LOC EURO 2012 Ukraine Anna Dobko – Media Relations Officer Mobile: +380 93 316 78 16 [email protected] UEFA headquarters: Phone: +41 848 04 27 27 [email protected] Announcement of the first four Friends of EURO 2012 in Ukraine Intercontinental hotel, Kyiv 3 September 2010, 09.00 Serhiy Bubka Serhiy Bubka, a retired Ukrainian pole-vaulter is president of the national Olympic committee of Ukraine. As a competitor, he won 6 consecutive IAAF World Championships and an Olympic gold, and broke the world record for men's pole-vaulting 35 times (17 outdoor and 18 indoor records). He was the first to clear 6 metres and the first and only (as at March 2010) to clear 6.10 metres (20 feet). He holds the current outdoor world record of 6.14 metres (20 feet 1¾ inches), set on 31 July 1994 in Sestriere, Italy, and the current indoor world record of 6.15 metres, set on 21 February 1993 in Donetsk, Ukraine. Serhiy Bubka, who has a Ph.D., won the Soviet sportsman of the year award three years in a row, was voted sportsman of the year by the French daily L’Equipe in 1997, the winner of the nomination “For a prominent Career” (2000, IAAF) and many national awards. Serhiy Bubka officially retired from pole-vaulting career 2001 and embarked on what has become a prominent political career. In 2002 he became a member of the Ukrainian parliament; he is also president of the Serhiy Bubka sports club in Donetsk and the organiser of the annual Stars of Pole-Vaulting contest. He is a member of the Champions for Peace club, a group of 40 famous elite athletes committed to serving peace in the world through sport, created by the Monaco-based international organisation Peace and Sport. Serhiy Bubka is a member of the International Olympic Committee and since 2000 has been a member of its Executive Board. Valeri Borzov Ukrainian Olympic champion sprinter, four times European champion, seven times European indoor champion, political and social activist, the first Ukrainian minister for youth and sport (1991–1996), president of the Ukrainian national Olympic committee (1990–1998), Valeri Borzov has been a member of the International Olympic Committee since 1994, was a member of the Ukrainian parliament and is currently serving his fourth term as president of the Ukrainian athletics federation, an office he has held since 1996. He is a doctor of pedagogical science and the author of four books on sport. Ivan Malkovych One of the most famous modern Ukrainian poets and publishers, Ivan Malkovych is the owner and manager of the private publishing house A-BA-BA-GA-LA-MA-GA, which specialises in high-quality (often illustrated) editions of Ukrainian literature and poetry, and has won many industry awards. Ivan Malkovych is the author of four collection of poems, including The White Stone (1984), The Key (1988), Poems (1992), and With an Angel on a Shoulder (1997). He is also the author and compiler of more than 30 books for children, including Ukrainian Alphabet and Favourite Poems. Ivan Malkovych was closely associated with the first Canadian-Ukrainian joint venture known as Kobza and was involved in the organisation of the Chervona Ruta festival of contemporary music held in Chernivtsi in 1989. Svyatoslav Vakarchuk The lead vocalist of Okean Elzy, the most successful post-Soviet rock band in Ukraine, has a Ph.D. in theoretical physics. The singer is involved in many social and cultural projects and is the founder of the charitable foundation Lyudy maybutnyogo (People of the Future). By 2009 he had released six studio albums with his band Okean Elzy: Tam, de nas nema (There, where we aren't, 1998), Yananebibuv (I was in Heaven, 2000), Model (2001), Supersymetriya (Supersymmetry, 2003), GLORIA (2005), Mira (Measure, 2007), and also one acoustic album Tviy format (Your Format, 2003). In 2008 Svyatoslav Vakarchuk released a solo project, Vnochi (In the Night). This album was released under the name of Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, but it includes appearances by all members of Okean Elzy and various other guest musicians. He was active in supporting the Orange Revolution; in the parliamentary elections on 30 September 2007 he stood as an independent candidate for the Our Ukraine–People's Self- Defence Bloc. In the Ukrainian parliament he was a member of the parliamentary committee for freedom of speech questions. In early September 2008 he resigned his seat in the parliament due to the political situation. Svyatoslav Vakarchuk has also won the jackpot (1 million hryvien) on the Ukrainian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The Ukrainian magazine Korrespondent ranks him as one of the 100 most influential people in Ukraine. Announcement of the first four of Friends of EURO 2012 in Poland Andels Hotel, Lodz 4 September 2010, 13.00 Robert Korzeniowski A Polish athlete and race walker, who has won four Olympic gold medals, Korzeniowski was the first person in the history of Polish sport and international race walking to take medals in three consecutive Olympic Games and the first to have won both the 20 and 50km races during the same Games. Robert Korzeniowski is involved in promoting athletics and an active lifestyle. He was one of the founders of the Cracovia marathon and since 1997 has organised a world-class IAAF competition, March to the Square, in Krakow. From 2006 to 2009 he co-organised and promoted a mass event called Poland Runs, the last edition of which attracted 100,000 participants. He left the sports scene unbeaten, ending his career with his fourth Olympic title, which he won in Athens. From 2005 to 2009 he headed Polish television’s sports department and was also general manager of the Polish sports channel TVP Sport from 2007 to 2009. He currently trains business people in career development management and crisis handling. Robert Korzeniowski is active in the Polish athletics association, being responsible for strategy and international relations, while on the Polish Olympic committee he runs a programme of professional retraining for athletes ending their careers, supporting them in their transition to the labour market. Józef Młynarczyk A former Polish football player and goalkeeper for the Polish national team. He began his professional career in the clubs of Nowa Sól. From 1977 to 1980 he played for first-division club Odra Opole, where he started his long cooperation with Antoni Piechniczek. In 1979 he made his debut in the Polish national team, led by Ryszard Kulesza, playing in a match against Tunisia. In 1980 he was transferred to Widzew Łódź, with whom, he won twice won the Polish championship (1981 and 1982) and reached the semi-final of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup (1983). In 1984 he moved to French club SC Bastia and in 1985 to FC Porto in Portugal, where he achieved his greatest victories at club level: two Portuguese championship titles (1986 and 1988), the Portuguese Cup (1988) and the Portuguese Super Cup (1988). In 1987, he became the second Pole to win the European Champion Clubs’ Cup, after Zbigniew Boniek, and also added the UEFA Super Cup and Intercontinental Cup to his list of honours. Młynarczyk played 42 times for the Polish national, including in the 1982 World Cup in Spain (third place) and 1986 World Cup in Mexico (Poland eliminated in the group stage). He finished his football career in 1989. From 1994 to 1999 he trained goalkeepers for FC Porto’s first team, who won the Portuguese championship five times in a row during that time. He worked with Sir Bobby Robson and Jose Mourinho, and also supported Jerzy Engel’s senior Polish national team; with Engel, he took Poland to the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan.