AS BRAZILIANS took to the streets to protest against overspending on the 2014 World Cup, Poles and Ukrainians were celebrating the anniversary of another soccer tournament that also required a huge investment from their respective government: UEFA Euro 2012. Today a year ago the tournament ended in glory for Spain (pictured), and, supposedly, for the two host nations. Both Poland and Ukraine won plaudits for football matches that passed off free of the chaos, racist violence and technical breakdown some had predicted. Their respective international public images were much enhanced. Some say this is because these were unfairly negative beforehand.

Even so, as Rio rioted, Poland was being subjected to a stream of less glorious Euro 2012-related news. Austria’s Alpine Bau, a construction firm that had worked on roads and stadiums in Poland in the run-up to the tournament, filed for bankruptcy. Prompted by the problems of this and other construction firms, the ambassadors of six EU states wrote to Poland’s deputy prime minister asking why the country’s roads authority had not paid them debts totalling more than two billion euros (more than $2.6 billion). Meanwhile complaints sprung up about the safety of the A2 motorway, opened in a great rush the day before the tournament started, even though it was not yet complete. It is still not finished.

On June 23rd a train on the new line to Warsaw’s airport derailed. No one was hurt, but the incident added to an increasing sentiment that a lot of shoddy work was done in the rush to get infrastructure finished in time for Euro 2012. In April, for example, cracks had appeared in Poznan’s stadium, forcing the temporary closure of one stand.

Then there is the problem of the stadiums’ solvency. The venues in Gdansk, Warsaw and Wrocław will all post significant losses this year, with the National Stadium in the capital set to be nearly €5m in the red.

In January Poland transferred the management of the stadium to a company called PL.2012 +, saying a more commercial approach was needed. The firm appears to be rising to the challenge with some verve. Its business plan proposes a three-pronged attack: the stadium will host sporting events, concerts, and social events (which do not necessarily make use of the whole stadium). One senses that this third prong, including conferences and other corporate gatherings, will be crucial to the stadium’s promise to turn a profit by 2015.

It is expensive to bring major international stars to Poland and Ukraine, where audiences cannot afford the ticket prices charged in Western Europe and can be risky. Even Paul McCartney did not quite manage to sell out the national stadium for his concert on June 22nd. The cheapest seats cost €30, but the range went up to €250.

Frustrated with the transport infrastructure and worried that the stadiums constitute a small herd of white elephants, Poles’ enthusiasm for Euro 2012 has waned somewhat. A recent survey showed a fall in the numbers saying they were satisfied with the way the country handled the tournament. But at 64%, it remains high.

Ukrainians, meanwhile, seem to take the attitude of collateral benefactors of their leaders’ profligacy. “Lord knows how much money they wasted on that,” laughs Artyem, a visitor to a photographic exhibition devoted to Euro 2012, “but it was fun!”

Low expectations of the political class, perceived as incorrigibly corrupt, mean that few Ukrainians were under many illusions that money spent on stadiums might have built hospitals if it weren’t for the tournament.

Some roads were improved and airports rebuilt (though the new terminal in Donetsk is manifestly far bigger than it needs to be), and most importantly, Ukrainians feel the tournament put their country on the map. At the beach bars and cafés on Trukhaniv island, in the Dnieper river in central Kiev, staff say they are getting more and more foreign visitors.

According to Ildar Gazizulin of the Ukrainian Institute for Public Policy, economists tend to take a similar line: optimism amid limited expectations: “Most experts say, OK we realise that maybe 30-40% of expenditures went to the government’s pockets, but at least 70% went to some objects we can touch and use”.

In Ukraine, as in Brazil, the state ended up paying for most of the infrastructure needed to host the tournament. “It was supposed to be 80% / 20% in favour of private investment, and it turned out to be the opposite”, says Mr Gazizulin. Nevertheless, despite the gap between what was promised and what was delivered, Mr Gazizulin expects the net result for the Ukrainian economy to be positive.

But he stresses that the real effects will be in the longer term, and that putting figures on the economic benefits of organising international sporting events is difficult. How to judge what investments would have been made anyway sooner or later, for example, or what necessary investments were set back because money was assigned to tournament venues? The psychological and public relations effects are also hard to quantify.

For what it is worth, a report produced for Poland’s ministry for sport and tourism at the end of last year predicts that the tournament will have added 1.3% to the country’s GDP over the 2008-2020 period. A small victory, then.