In a small coffee shop near Donbass Arena in central Donetsk, an elderly Ukrainian man stares bewilderedly at the hordes of Spaniards covered in red and yellow running by.

His bewilderment is not because of the ‘Viva Espana!’ chants from the fans of the world champions, but rather his disbelief at the number of tourists visiting this usually quiet city.

He bellows ‘Provalyivey!’ to the Spaniards, which is Russian for ‘piss off’. They take little notice of him.

On the other side of the coffee shop, Dmytro, the 64-year-old owner, laughs.

‘He’s old and crazy,’ he tells me. ‘To him, everyone who is a foreigner is not welcome in this country.’

And yet the EURO has attracted them in the thousands.

‘We’re so used to being Ukrainian now, you know?’ says Dmytro.

‘The Russians, the Poles, the Turks…everyone always wanted to have this land, to have us, to control us. Now we’re independent,’ he says, pointing then to the old man whose attention has now turned to the next flock of tourists walking by.

‘People like him don’t want things to change.’

And it’s hard to blame him. Among UEFA and FIFA‘s push to have football’s largest two international competitions – the European Championship and the World Cup – in under-developed countries like Ukraine, comes a burden for the local people which is difficult to both convey and relate to.

Donetsk is however, the perfect example of this burden.  The city is the centre of Ukraine’s coal mining and steel industries, and has little tourist-appeal. The city centre has little to offer the average tourist, despite its spacious parks and rose gardens.

Those who choose to visit Ukraine (once past the protracted visa-application process) tend to visit Kiev, the nation’s glorious capital, or Odessa, for its pristine beaches. But not Donetsk.

Hence one of the reasons for UEFA’s push to have it, and not a popular holiday destination like Odessa, as a host city.

But with this decision has come the need for some major refurbishments.

The area surrounding the impressive Donbass Arena was turned into a picturesque scene, with parks and make-shift ponds surrounding it.  The airport, which only had four domestic daily flights pre-EURO, was rebuilt. High-speed trains were purchased to make the otherwise painful trip to Kiev less than six hours in duration. Extra street cleaners were hired to keep the city litter-free and police presence was increased to prevent any post-game violence.

The total cost of all of this is not known, but for the locals, they say it’ll be them who’ll be paying it for a long time.

‘It’s all nice here now because you are here,’ says 21-year-old Yulya, who works at the hostel I stayed in.

‘Everything is expensive and everyone is trying to make the most of your money.’

She’s right about that. Prices have been inflated to match the tourists’ disposable incomes. A Canadian couple I met on the flight to Donetsk, for example, paid a jaw-dropping $700 for a night in a two-star hotel.

‘Next week, Donetsk will be normal again,’ says Yulya. ‘No more tourists. No more fakeness. Just the lonely city we are.’

The lonely city – the perfect description.

From a foreigner’s (and clearly from both UEFA and FIFA’s) perspective, bringing huge competitions to countries like Ukraine appears to benefit the country in terms of infrastructure and tourism.

But for the locals, it’s a slightly different story.

Nick, an 18-year-old student in Donetsk, is one of the ‘tourist guides’ whose sole job is to roam the city and assist match-goers. He’s also a massive football fan himself.

Did he have a chance to watch any of the games?

‘Is that a joke?’ he replies to this suggestion, in fluent English – a rare commodity in Donetsk.

‘How much did you pay for your ticket?’ he asks. I’m almost embarrassed to give him the 150-EURO answer.

‘How much do you think I have to work to earn that?’

It’s a well-intentioned slap in my face.

Almost everyone I’ve encountered in this city has said they can’t see the benefits which UEFA apparently can in hosting the EURO.

Sure, a new, modern airport is great – but how many people actually fly in and out of Donetsk normally?

‘We’ll go back to just four flights a day,’ says 51-year-old Bohuslav, who relocated his small cafe from the old terminal to the adjacent new one.

‘We’ve impressed the world, but after Wednesday, we’ll sit here wondering what just happened,’ he says.

The question remains whether those who decide host countries of such competitions will do the same.

Erdem Koc lectures in journalism at La Trobe University and is in Poland/Ukraine for EURO2012. You can follow him on Twitter: @erdemkoc