The European Football Championship will start in ten weeks. It is not yet clear who will play in the Games. Uefa’s procrastination in the matter is disgusting, writes Urheilun Hinni Hirvonen.
There are two and a half months to the start of the European Football Championship. It is still unclear which country will replace Russia in the Games – or whether a country that kills civilians in Ukraine will still be able to play for the European Green.
The International Football Association (FIFA) and the European Football Association (UEFA) ruled out Russia’s international activities after the country attacked Ukraine in February.
Russia, embarrassed by the decision, appealed to the International Court of Appeal for Sport in Cas. There, the treatments usually take months.
The Athletic revealed on Tuesday (move to another service)that no party has requested expedited processing. No consultation days have yet been marked on the calendar, even though the race will start in as little as ten weeks.
Chairman Alexander Ceferin according to Uefa cannot make a decision until it hears more information from Cas. Next time, the management team will meet on May 11, but there are no guarantees yet that Cas’s decision will come before that.
No one seems to know because the decision on the fourth country in Block C will be made.
The situation is incomprehensibly unfair to countries that may aspire to the European Championships. According to Ceferin, a possible substitute for Russia would be found among the teams close to the competition venue: Portugal, Ukraine and the Czech Republic, which played in the same European Championship qualifying group as Finland, lost their European Championship qualifiers.
The Ukrainian women’s national football team has naturally suffered the most. Many of the team’s players represented the country’s multiple champion, Zhytlobud-1, from the club level.
Just two days before the Russian attack, the team celebrated the victory in the Turkish Cup in Alanya. Some of the team’s players returned to Kharkov after the tournament, where they had to flee bombs for their lives.
It has also been challenging for Portugal and the Czech Republic to prepare for a possible European Championship venue. The Czech Republic tried to approach Uefa with an open letter about the situation, but has not received a reply.
The Portuguese Football Association has also not received any update on the matter, and the country’s women’s national team has not had any matches on the calendar before the September World Cup qualifiers.
Switzerland, Sweden and the Netherlands have indicated that they do not intend to play against Russia. Where other countries have had access to their European Championship opponents since the end of October, Group C countries do not yet know who they will face in third.
Of course, no one’s situation is anything compared to the suffering of the Ukrainians.
Nevertheless, Uefa’s procrastination is repulsive. It’s hard to imagine a similar thing happening at the Men’s European Championships. The pressure on the media and hopefully also the sponsors would be huge.
Stadiums also speak
– This is shocking. There are so many stadiums in England and we play on a practice field that draws 4,000 spectators. It’s embarrassing. Look at women’s football today, the match between Barcelona and Madrid was watched by more than 90,000 spectators. The race organizers are not prepared for us to sell more than 4,000 tickets. It is disrespectful to women’s football, Gunnarsdottir rumbles (you switch to another service).
Iceland plays at the stadium of the Manchester City women’s representative team, where the club’s academy teams also play. The stadium has a capacity of 7,000, but only 4,700 tickets are sold there during the Games. Manchester United’s home stadium for young teams and women, The Leigh Sports Village, also draws just over 8,000 spectators at the European Championships.
The last decisions about the race stadiums were made in August 2019, three years ago. As early as the summer of 2019, however, it could be seen that women’s football is of interest to the people.
Records have been broken several times in recent weeks: Barcelona broke the all-time record as many as twice: first in March in the semi-finals of the Champions League and again last Friday against Wolfsburg in the semi-finals. Last Friday, Camp Noue was crowded with 91,600 spectators.
Now, three years later, Manchester’s stadiums look small in terms of potential.
The European Football Association (UEFA) and the International Football Association (FIFA) have been working for years to promote women’s football. Now that the work is bearing fruit, it would be time to realize the potential.