Thanks to the three musketeers!
On the one hand, it is of course not expedient to offer countries like Russia or Qatar a sole world championship platform. However, in case of doubt, it is even more problematic to cooperate with undemocratic and unfree states on such a stage and thereby welcome them into the European family with open arms. That creates legitimacy. And as a European family of values, legitimising the far-reaching human rights violations in Hungary, Russia and Azerbaijan is the last thing we should do. It is already problematic enough when the big supranational associations UEFA - and thus their president - or FIFA come to terms with it, at least we, as fans and a community of values, should oppose it. Instead, those responsible - especially at the German Football Association - hide behind legalistic paragraph-wrangling and fail to take a clear position on sporting policy and society. And our political representatives like to court and receive those politicians against whom we should finally take a clear stance. European federation, national federations and politics: the unholy trinity of noble socio-political restraint.
Sponsors and the pandemic
Accordingly, it is hardly surprising that UEFA is less attractive than ever as a partner. It is therefore no wonder that (Western) European corporations are withdrawing more and more from UEFA competitions. The resulting economic vacuum is being exploited above all by companies and brands from the Far East. China wants to host a World Cup sooner rather than later, and the corresponding product placements and the associated blank cheques are already moving in the direction of football's political power centres. But the money has to come from somewhere. And the state coffers of the honourable sports comrades Putin & Co. should not be strained too much.
A major pan-European tournament is always a challenge, not only organisationally and economically. Even without a pandemic. The fact that this global social crisis has made it even more difficult for this pan-European European Championship to enchant football fans all over Europe is obvious and is not fundamentally the fault of the organisers. Their handling of this crisis, however, is. Nothing feeds a virus better than large crowds moving united from country to country. As a result, this European Championship has constantly had the stale aftertaste of being inappropriate and pretentious.
It's not OUR football, it's OUR European Championship.
In the end, one thing can be said above all: rarely has a European Championship or World Cup been as little fun as this year. Of course, it would be unfair to ignore the pandemic in this assessment. It is a factor for which none of the organisers is responsible and which has not only thwarted this European Championship, but many other (more important) things. But the pandemic should not be misused as an excuse or sole reason. The mistakes made in the run-up to and during this tournament were too numerous and too serious. It has brought states into the European community of values and football that do not deserve to be part of it. It gave these states a platform, legitimised their social politics and pandered to them. Instead, those venues were cancelled that had consciously dealt responsibly with the pandemic and would have drastically reduced spectator capacity. Once again, this tournament has made us all complicit and collaborators in a sell-out of European football and European values. The winners of this European Championship are not the fans, not the teams or football itself. The winners sit in Baku, Budapest, Moscow and Beijing. They will all be highly satisfied with this European Championship. We are not. We don't want this football!
