Warsaw - Poland's defeat against Germany at Euro 2008 may have cost the Polish economy 50 million zloty (23.3 million dollars), the Dziennik daily said on Tuesday, citing economy experts. The paper said that work productivity went down by by one-fifth on Monday, the day after the 2-0 loss in Klagenfurt, Austria.
Psychologists and labour production experts estimated that each Polish football fan spent at least 15 minutes discussing Sunday's match, and the frustration of defeat lowered productivity by at least 10 per cent.
Each of Lukas Podolski's two goals, they claimed, cost Poland 25 million zloty (11.6 million USD.)
Many employers noticed workers' frustration, Dziennik reported, and said there was an atmosphere of disenchantment in their workplace.
"I feel lousy and I force myself to work with difficulty," Andrzej Malinowski, the head of the Confederation of Polish Employers, told Dziennik.
"In our firm, everything works somehow only because I work mostly with women who aren't interested in football and aren't taking Sunday's match hard."
The experts said the worst is already behind the Poles, and upcoming matches with Austria and Croatia will be less emotional for fans.
