DDenmark’s national coach Kasper Hjulmand has criticized the mode of the European football championship with numerous flights for the teams during a pandemic. “After everything we’ve seen, a trip to Baku is like a walk in the park for us,” said the 49-year-old on Monday, referring to the collapse of Danish playmaker Christian Eriksen during the first European Championship game. “But if you ask me a little more generally, I’ll say: This form of tournament is not the best idea. A group stage with four teams in one place would have been better. If you want to see the best of the players in a tournament like this, you can’t let them travel around like that – not through two time zones for a game. “
Co-hosts Denmark were allowed to play all three preliminary round games in Copenhagen, but after their round of 16 against Wales (4-0) in Amsterdam they are now traveling to a quarter-final game against the Czech Republic in Baku in the capital of Azerbaijan (Saturday, 6 p.m. in the FAZ- Live ticker for the European Football Championship and on MagentaTV).
Lauterbach calls for the game to be relocated
When the German footballers landed in London on Monday, the corona worries were in their luggage – and the criticism had long since been there. Robin Gosens expressed both. “Over 40,000 spectators in the stadium in the only country in Europe where the incidences are high. That doesn’t make it safe for us, “said the international:” For the overall picture, it’s certainly anything but optimal. “
Before the European Championship round of 16 of the Germans on Tuesday in Wembley Stadium against England (6 p.m. / in the FAZ live ticker for the European Football Championship, ARD and MagentaTV), numerous politicians and health experts also see the general audience policy of the European Football Union (UEFA) as suboptimal. The fear of the Delta variant and the warnings of the first pan-European final as a super-spreading event are increasing.
“The semifinals and the final should not take place in London’s Wembley Stadium, but should be relocated to another location,” said SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach, who on Monday also spoke out in favor of reducing the number of spectators in the Tagesspiegel: “What is relative can certainly offer is when every fifth seat is occupied. So at Wembley, with a capacity of 90,000, that would mean a total of 18,000 seats. “On Tuesday, however, 45,000 visitors are admitted – including up to 2000 German fans who live in Great Britain or Ireland.
More than 60,000 spectators are allowed into the arena for the semi-finals and the final – although the incidence on the island continues to rise due to the variant first discovered in India. Not only Lauterbach (“This is a fire accelerator for the Delta variant”) considers this to be irresponsible. Immunologist Carsten Watzl cannot understand the high workload in some stages. “To be honest, this picture is quite irritating,” said the General Secretary of the German Society for Immunology on Monday in the ZDF morning magazine: “We have to manage in Germany to keep the spread of the Delta variant low. That can only succeed if we don’t bring too many additional travelers back into the country. Full football stadiums are definitely the wrong signal. “
“Full football stadiums certainly send the wrong signal”
Against the background of rising incidences, this also applies to the venue St. Petersburg, where, according to the organizers, the planned quarter-finals will be held on Friday despite everything. In view of the situation in Russia, reported infections around games and the report by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the connections between EM games and the increase in the number of cases, Bundestag Vice President Claudia Roth sees the tournament as extremely critical. “I’m really a huge soccer fan. But under these conditions, in this tense situation, you cannot hold a European championship the way it is, ”said the Green politician in the Augsburger Allgemeine.
The criticism of UEFA has continued since the spring. At that time, the association decided to demand a spectator guarantee from the EM hosts despite the pandemic. The procedure was seen by many critics as blackmail. Because of the resistance from Munich, the German venue was on the brink for a long time.
Since Dublin and Bilbao did not want to give guarantees in principle, they were deleted. After Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron had recently announced their concerns, the pressure on UEFA is now being increased by other politicians as well. CSU General Secretary Markus Blume called on UEFA to “carefully review” its stadium concept. Nobody was helped “to become European champion in the incidence soaring”.
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