UEFA draws EM balance: 'We very much welcome to Germany'
Hundreds of thousands celebrating fans in the cities, full stadiums during the games, praise for the host Germany: The UEFA draws a first balance of the European Football Championship. Only one thing makes the Union unsatisfied - and that's not the train.
The European Football Union has drawn a positive balance just before the end of the European Football Championship. "We are very, very satisfied with how the tournament has run. We had so many fans from all over Europe come here peacefully and celebrate, cheer for their team", said UEFA Competitions Director Martin Kallen. "We are very happy to come to Germany."
Only one game remains, the final on Sunday in Berlin between Spain and England (9 pm/ARD, MagentaTV and on ntv.de-Liveticker). "The organization was very, very good. The games were good. There were few surprises", said the Swiss Kallen at a reception in Munich to honor the Volunteers.
"Very annoying" found Kallen the flare-ups during the tournament. There were partly commercial interests involved and people who paid for it, said the UEFA man. "That is one part of the flare-ups. The other part was the Ronaldo mania, where Ronaldo as a superstar simply electrified the people so much that they wanted to take a selfie with him unconditionally." The preliminaries were not ideal. "One should be able to play a football game through. But we have lived with it and kept adapting, so that we had less and less of it", he said.
Apart from the flare-ups, there were also frequent problems with transport and the German Railways. One knew for a long time that the Bahn has problems, said Kallen. "But what one has seen, there were very many trains. The offer is very high." He was every day on the train and saw that he had to come at least three hours in advance. The buffer was sufficient. "I adjusted a bit. It was a bit tiring, but the offer is actually large and varied."
The Bahn was criticized for its performance during the tournament several times. Only this week, the Dutch team had to travel to the semi-final in Wolfsburg to Dortmund by plane instead of by train due to a last-minute train failure.
UEFA is also satisfied with the cooperation with German Railways during the European Football Championship, despite some challenges. The European Football Championship 2024 is expected to benefit from the lessons learned during this tournament.
