It was to be an unprecedented competition, dreamed of by Michel Platini: a football Euro with 24 teams, organized in 13 cities and as many countries. The Euro of thirteen became the Euro of twelve in 2017, when the city of Brussels was excluded, for lack of a stadium large enough to host the event. It will finally be the Euro of the eleven after the UEFA, in charge of the organization, announced this Friday in a press release the eviction of Bilbao and Dublin. The two cities were unable to guarantee at least 25% filling of their respective stadiums, in accordance with the wishes of the organization which, despite the health crisis, did not want a competition without an audience.
The matches scheduled in Dublin will thus be split between Saint Petersburg and London, which were already scheduled to host several matches – including the semi-finals and the final for London. As for those announced in the Basque Country, they will finally be held in Seville, the autonomous community of Andalusia having affirmed its intention to welcome spectators up to 30% of the stadium’s capacity. A final uncertainty concerned Munich, which had so far failed to offer UEFA the necessary guarantees. Germany’s third largest city has finally committed to welcoming “At least 14,500 spectators” at each meeting, and was therefore “Confirmed as a Euro site”, can we read in the press release from UEFA.
The German Football Association (DFB) was delighted with this decision, even if its president, Fritz Keller, was much more measured on the number of supporters that the Allianz Arena in Munich will be able to accommodate: “We are happy to receive confirmation from UEFA and to be able to host Euro 2021 in Munich – perhaps even in front of an audience, if the development of the pandemic allows it.” The mayor of the Bavarian capital, Dieter Reiter, was even more adamant, contradicting UEFA just minutes after the announcement: “A week ago, I couldn’t say if there would be spectators or how many. I can’t say it today anymore, so there hasn’t been any promise of any kind to guarantee spectators so far. ” An umpteenth rebound is therefore not to be excluded.
In Bilbao too, the UEFA press release caused a lot of talk. Frustrated to have been dispossessed of their four meetings in a decision “Unilateral”, Basque organizers have let it be known that they plan to take the European body to court to recover the 1.2 million euros already committed.
