At Wednesday’s final keynote session at the EASM 2012 conference Jens Sejer Andersen, international director of Play the Game pointed to seven areas of interest for academic research in the future.

Play the Game invites international and Brazilian speakers to submit proposals for a one-day seminar in São Paulo.

Prominent keynote speakers from the international world of sport and a long line of special Play the Game symposia will give spectators a taste of Play the Game as an integral part of EASM 2012 in Aalborg, Denmark, on 18-21 September.

The former president of the German Football Association, Theo Zwanziger, and head of FIFA’s Independent Governance Committee, Mark Pieth, are among the keynote speakers at the EASM conference in Aalborg, Denmark, taking place on 18-21 September.

The Ukrainian government had high hopes that co-hosting the Euro 2012 would be Ukraine’s European coming out party. For now, the tournament remains a PR disaster, highlighting mostly corruption scandals and political turmoil, writes Ukraine-based journalist Mark Rachkevych in his second of two articles on Ukraine’s Euro 2012 preparations.

Many of the stadiums constructed or renovated for sport’s major events end up as a great financial burden for their public owners and local communities, who are not able to fill the stadiums after the ‘circus’ has left town. That is the tendency shown in a new report from the Danish Institute for Sports Studies (Idan) and Play the Game.

COMMENT: International sport and local politicians are responsible for the waste of resources worth billions of dollars when demanding oversized stadiums that mainly serve the interests of the contractors who build and maintain them.

Despite major delays, new and spectacular stadiums in Poland and Ukraine will be ready to host this summer’s UEFA Euro 2012. But will there be a long lasting legacy justifying the massive investments?