This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on June 14, 2021 - June 20, 2021
Given a fixture list that might have been culled from the departure board of a busy international airport, it’s not inaccurate to say that the long-delayed 2020 Uefa European Football Championship has finally taken off.
On board are 24 national teams and their entourages who will spend up to a month criss-crossing the continent. They will land to play a game before taking off again to another destination, in some cases, thousands of kilometres away. Almost all will spend more time in the air than they will on the field.
“The Euros” kicked off in Rome when Italy hosted Turkey on Saturday, June 12, and will end with a final in London on July 11. Envisaged as a unique pan-European way to celebrate the tournament’s 60th anniversary last year, that goal has been missed, yet Uefa seems hell-bent on providing assists for the pandemic.
Staging it in 12 different countries was always hare-brained from a football standpoint — the logistics were a nightmare —while for the environment, it was a declaration of war. Yet when Covid-19 struck, Uefa refused to budge despite safer and simpler alternatives.
Long before kick-off, two host cities, Dublin and Bilbao, dropped out, being unable to guarantee allowing enough fans to reach the required 25% capacity in their stadiums. Seville replaced Bilbao and Dublin’s matches were shared around, but uncertainty reigns over others. Misplaced carbon footprints are one thing, becoming a virus super-spreader is quite another.
Covid-19 restrictions mean that there will be far fewer than the two million extra individual trips that were originally estimated. But it’s still hard to think of a more effective way to cause a spike in infections than having planeloads of people, whose very purpose is to mingle, making a whistle-stop tour of the continent.
Besides the players, coaches, officials, medics and media, there will be fans, many of whom will be unvaccinated and cannot be relied upon to practise social distancing at the best of times. It’s not just a recipe for disaster, it’s a delivery service.
Besides emissions and transmissions, there is cost and inconvenience to consider. Seville in the west and Baku in the east are 4,766km apart and it is Wales that have been handed the Marco Polo role. With two games in Baku, which is 4,200km away by plane, split by one game in Rome, if they don’t top their group, they’ll top the frequent flyer points table.
With no budget airline or even direct flights, at least one change of plane will be needed, while the cost of hotels in the oil-rich Azerbaijan capital are as prohibitive as the airfares. Just to see his or her country play in the group phase, it could cost the average wage-earning Welsh fan three months’ income. At some fixtures, the virus will not be the only reason for low attendance.
It makes a mockery of the idea of a festival of sport where fans base themselves in one city and travel by road or rail to watch other games without crossing a border. Fan gatherings over the next month are likely to be sparse — as are revenues. The postponement has already cost Uefa €300 million (RM1.5 billion) and it is sure to see a sizable dent in the usual €2 billion windfall.
England, who host the semi-finals as well as final at Wembley, appear to be sitting comfortably with three group games at home. But their route back to a home final, should they get that far, could be problematic. If they fail to win their group, it could be via Copenhagen and St Petersburg if they come second, or even Budapest and Baku if they come third.
As fans will not be able to book flights between these cities until they know the results, a last-minute rush for seats could be triggered, in turn causing both a heavier carbon footprint and a spike in cases. Just what the authorities will be dreading.
Originally dreamt up by then Uefa president Michel Platini in 2012, having 12 hosts was the kind of idea that might have come from a boozy night out but got quietly dropped the next morning. The ex-France midfield maestro, who famously kissed the ball before missing a penalty in the 1986 World Cup, called it “romantic” and, in the absence of an outstanding host candidate, pushed it through.
Uefa never sobered up either. The plan was not changed when Platini resigned in disgrace (for taking unrelated bribes) in 2016, and not even when Covid-19 forced its postponement last year. Having thought on its feet with its club competitions — changing the venues and even reducing two-leg Champions League knockout matches to one leg last year — it was expected that Uefa would revert to the traditional single or twin host(s).
Britain and Germany were willing but sharing the hosting rights between the eastern and western halves of the continent seemed to come before the health of the population. And football managers and climate experts haven’t pulled their punches in condemnation.
Two years ago, when all four finalists at Uefa’s two club competitions came from the English Premier League, the finals took place in Madrid and Baku. It caused Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp to wonder: “How can you have finals in Kiev [where Liverpool played Real Madrid the previous year] and Baku [where Chelsea met Arsenal]? I don’t know what these travel guys have for breakfast.”
Asked for his views on Euro 2020, Andrew Simms, of environmental think-tank New Weather Institute, opined: “It’s almost like going out and saying: How can we design a competition to maximise our environmental impact? It implies the laws of physics don’t apply to Uefa.”
Karima Delli, a member of French Green party, added: “This is total nonsense from an environmental viewpoint. They say this new format is about showcasing European unity, but they’re forgetting that there is a climate emergency.” It seems they’ve forgotten there’s a Covid emergency too.
So, what does Uefa have to say about this? By their own calculation, the event will produce 425,000 tons of carbon emissions. President Aleksander Ceferin acknowledges: “It will pollute a lot,” but adds, “In addition to being able to take the matches to more diverse communities across Europe, there is no need either to build a host of new stadiums or the transport links that they require.” Only the Puskas stadium in Budapest has been built specifically with the finals in mind.
For the environment, Uefa hired the carbon offset specialists, South Pole, and plans to plant 50,000 trees in each of the original 12 host nations. Launched at the just-completed European Under-21 Championships, it would not be complete without a snappy slogan. It was: “Clearer Air, Better Game”.
Sometimes, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Bob Holmes is a long-time sports writer specialising in football
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