Whats the Big Idea
While UEFA’s executive met in Kiev this week, they could congratulate themselves on another successful tournament, far from the worst fears (or wishes) of the BBC’s Panorama.
It has not been without incident, but overall the football has shone above other concerns. The legacy is eight large stadia, many of which will rarely be filled again, built at great expense to local taxpayers, during a recession.
In better economic times, UEFA had decided to expand the tournament. There will be 24 teams contesting Euro 2016 in France France also staged the finals (which meant four games then, semi-finals, 3rd/4th play off and Final) of the initial tournament back in 1960. On that occasion, there were only 17 teams in contention. Although Ireland played (and were knocked out in the preliminary round), there was no British participation, except Arthur Ellis refereeing the final.
For 2016, France is a safe pair of hands, there is no need to build many new stadiums after a recent World Cup there. The new stadiums in Lille and Nice were long overdue anyway, but UEFA were supposed to announce the bidding process for 2020 during the Kiev meeting, and there was a problem.
The problem was, there were only three bids, and none were ideal. Turkey had come close in the voting for 2016, and is still the favourite, but they would need to work on improving stadiums, and the country’s infrastructure is not well suited to the influx of fans. Past problems between Turkish fans and visitors during club matches, and an ongoing corruption scandal that sees some Turkish teams unable to compete in Europe do not help any Turkish bid, but the biggest problem is that Istanbul is a very plausible candidate for the 2020 Olympics, and staging the Olympics and the Euros in the same summer may is surely beyond any country’s capacity.
The alternatives are the Celtic (capital C) bid of Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland, or a hastily prepared by Georgia and Azerbaijan. Only the first of this pair put in a bid on time, with Azerbaijan adding their name after Baku had failed to make the Olympic short list. (International sports organisations find it difficult to work together, so UEFA had a deadline to submit bids of 15 May 2012, while the IOC announced their shortlist (Madrid, Tokyo and Istanbul) eight days later. Apart from Baku, the other city whose candidature ended in May was Doha, Qatar.
And so UEFA have ratified the idea of a pan-European tournament. Having launched the idea in his pre-finals speech, Platini is claiming it as his own, and it may well be. IN an earlier speech he floated the suggestion that the 2022 World Cup could be pan-Arabia, rather than limited to the single state of Qatar.
What Platini suggested was that 12-13 stadiums could bid to stage around 4 games each in a 24 or 32 country (yes, he did suggest 32), tournament. Going by the current favoured formats, of dividing the teams into groups of 4, and then a knock out section for the final 16 teams, (it would be 16 from either 24 or 32), then a 24 team tournament requires 51 matches, and for 32 teams, you need 63.
Platini’s assertion that the travel across Europe is made easier by the new low cost airlines suggests that he has seen them advertised, but never tried to book flights himself. For example, Wizz Air provides flights between London and Kiev, and will sell me a ticket booked a month in advance for around £200 return. I could have bought a ticket to the Euro final ten days before it was played. The match ticket was not expensive, but Wizz Air wanted over £500 for the return flight. Regular supporters of England or of clubs who use these airlines to travel abroad know that it is imperative to book quickly, and many are hovering over their computers as soon as the draws are made.
But this does not mean Platini’s ideas are without merit. To build more stadiums which are not required by the domestic game, and therefore have no use after the tournament is madness even in good economic times, while UEFA’s baseline for a tournament (2×50,000 seat stadiums, 3×40,000 and 4×30,000) can only be met by a small number of elite countries. Glancing at the current lisitng for the Turkish Superlig, it has three stadiums over 50,000 but no more over 40,000 and only two at 30,000+. All the first three, and one of the others is in Istanbul. Azerbaijan and Georgia are in a similar position with 50,000+ national stadiums in both capitals, but then the next best in each country holds just 30,000.
I do not believe a pan European tournament randomly selected could work, no country’s supporters could follow their team if the matches were in Gdansk, Glasgow and Geneva within a week, but if we looked at it another way, and said that Group A was, for example to be shared between Hamburg and Berlin, Group B between Glasgow and Dublin, Group C Zurich and Geneva, Group D Barcelona and Madrid, Group E Baku and Tblisia, Group F St Petersburg and Helsinki, then this could work. Each of the stadiums gets at least three matches, with one of each pair staging a first round knock out game as well.
Under this plan, the first knock out round is on a weekend (maybe Friday through to Monday), with the quarter finals the following weekend (Saturday and Sunday) either on four stadiums in a single country, or at least neighbouring. The teams then stay in the same neighbourhoods for the midweek semi-final games, and the final on the next Sunday.
The biggest difficulty with this idea, and with any other realisation of the Platini suggestion is in making sure the ticket sales kept up well. A series of matches pairing Portugal, Czech Republic, Greece and Serbia might not pack them in, in downtown Baku. It may be necessary to have a series of potential hosts waiting, but none announced for this stage until the 24 teams are known, so as each pair of cities includes a local “host”.
Meanwhile, Platini has made another point, and while I agree with the point made, I would take the opposite conclusion. Platini has said he is opposed to the use of technology because it would in time be more and more invasive. I agree, it will be, but I do not believe the game can stand still. It is no good for television audiences across Europe to see decisions questioned and shown to be wrong on a weekly basis. Platini is right to say that the officials made two mistakes, not one in not awarding Ukraine a goal against England. The ball did cross the line, but a player was offside.
I am unconvinced about the goal line technology only because I am unconvinced about it working, but I am sure that this can be successfully introduced, it will be the thin edge of a wedge, with offside decisions coming next under TV scrutiny and others in time.