Has Platini ruined the EURO’s?
Posted on December 17, 2012 9:33 pm
I may be looking back through rose-tinted glasses, but I remember EURO 2008, as being a truly great tournament. In fact, I’d say it’s the best tournament that’s taken place in my lifetime. It was, at least in my mind, a tournament where the attacking teams were rewarded and the teams that played negatively went home early. Similarly, EURO 2012 was a good tournament, certainly a step up in terms of drama and tension from the 2010 World Cup.
It didn’t take too long after EURO 2008 for UEFA to ruin things by announcing the expansion of the tournament from 16 to 24 teams, starting with the next European Championships to be held in France in 2016. UEFA’s executive committee said that the expansion would,
“give middle ranked teams a much greater chance to qualify for the final tournament, thereby expanding the fanbase directly reached, increasing the number of matches played and increasing the overall stadium capacity”
The part they didn’t publish, but was lost on nobody was “and make more money”.
UEFA currently has 53 members, with at least one more expected to join in the next few years. Having 24 teams involved means that around 45% of UEFA’s members will compete in the final stages of what’s supposed to be a major tournament, which is far too high a proportion.
What seems even more stupid is that in the new format, which is expected to be the same as was in the World Cup from 1986 to 1994 – only UEFA could try and modernise something and then come up with a format that was last used 20 years earlier- of the 24 teams going into the tournament, 16 will qualify from the group stages, the top two from each of the six groups of four, plus four third placed finishers.
A team finishing third in their group could quite conceivably not win a match, and yet they are rewarded by progressing to the next stage? It’s highly possible that this will lead to teams playing extremely negative, defensive football in order to grind out enough draws to go through, which will diminish the tournament as a spectacle. It also seems likely that this will lead to an increase in dead rubbers, both in qualifying and the tournament proper, which no fan wants to see.
UEFA’s premise of expanding the number of teams to give middle ranked nations the chance to play just doesn’t add up. Since the inception of the tournament, even when only 4 teams took part, in every European Championship there has always been a nation making their tournament debut, with co-hosts Ukraine continuing that record in this year’s tournament. Remember also that in the playoffs for EURO 2012, Estonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro could have come through their playoffs to make their tournament debuts.
I can’t see what’s wrong with the current system. It does give ‘middle tiered’ nations the chance to qualify. It’s not easy, but then again, it shouldn’t be. This is a major international tournament we’re talking about. In EURO 2004, against all odds, Latvia qualified for the finals after beating Turkey in a playoff. This was an incredible achievement for a small country, and one which they can look back on with immense pride. Would a team like Latvia get the same sense of satisfaction if they qualified after things were made a little easier for them to do so? I don’t think so.
Generally, the reason why countries are in the middle of the pack is because they don’t have as strong a pool of players to choose from as the teams above them. There are two ways players improve, better coaching and a higher standard of competition. With the latter in mind, it seems incredible that UEFA are seriously considering scrapping the Europa League in favour of an expanded Champions League, which would probably only benefit teams from Europe’s best leagues at the expense of teams from some of the lower-ranked European leagues, which will prevent a lot of players from reaping the benefits of having to compete against a better standard of opponent than they would in their domestic leagues.
When deciding to increase the number of competing teams, something UEFA seemingly didn’t foresee was that more teams in a tournament means more matches, an increase from 31 matches in the 16-team format to 51 in the 24-team format to be exact. This in turn means more stadiums would be required to host those matches, and increase from 8 in EURO 2012 to 10 in EURO 2016, which in turn means more money is required to build or refurbish stadiums to a required standard. Add to that the other costs of hosting a tournament; infrastructure, logistics, security etc. and that means that the cost of hosting a tournament is restrictively high.
Most European countries are currently in deep financial trouble and are on austerity drives to try and stave off financial meltdown. When governments all over Europe are faced with decisions regarding which essential public services they may have to cut to try and cut spending deficits, spending hundreds of millions hosting an international football tournament isn’t high on the agenda for most European nations.
When the invitations to bid for EURO 2020 came in, the list was quite short. There was a half-hearted joint bid from Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland that never really got off the ground; and a bid from Azerbaijan and Georgia, where neither party seemed exactly sure if it was a joint bid or separate ones, but neither bid really went anywhere. Turkey were the only nation to put in an official bid, despite having been ignored several times in the past. However, Istanbul is bidding for the 2020 Olympics, so as a result, UEFA were reluctant to award them the tournament as they don’t want their showpiece to turn into an afterthought.
The lack of an appealing bid from a host nation, or host nations, has led to UEFA announcing that EURO 2020 will be held in 13 cities all over Europe, rather than in one place. “We’re looking at something bigger and more united,” UEFA President Michel Platini said.
“Countries that would never have had the chance to host the Euros will be able to participate in this festival of football.
“The situation is difficult in Europe. It’s hard to ask one country to invest in 10 stadiums like in Ukraine. There’s also the idea of belonging to a European country. It’s a great idea to mark the anniversary.
“The Euros will go to the fans. It’ll meet supporters. In previous years, they had to go to the Euros. Everything will be done so that the fans are able to get to games.”
It hasn’t been announced exactly how it’ll work; there has been some vague talk about the seeded teams being the hosts, but Platini has assured fans they won’t have to travel from side of Europe to the other in order to follow their team.
UEFA have insisted that this will be a one-off, and they plan to revert to having the tournament based in one host country, or host countries, for the 2024 tournament, but I can’t help but get the feeling that this idea may be the shape of things to come rather than a one-off.
This decision hasn’t gone down well with fans. They think Platini is playing a clever political game, and this decision is more about currying favour with some of Europe’s smaller footballing nations in the hopes of securing votes in future elections, rather than being a decision that has been taken with the best interests of supporters in mind.
When an English journalist asked Platini how a fan could be expected to attend games in, for arguments sake, London, then Munich then Copenhagen, in order to follow their team in the group stages, Platini answered “As you know, there are budget airlines”
Of course, Platini’s right, there are budget airlines, but what he seems unaware of is that these airlines, which are riddled with hidden costs anyway, making what looks to be a cheap flight on paper, not-so cheap in reality, will hike their prices up to exorbitant levels and that assuming that fans can get seats, which are limited.
Even FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke isn’t in favour of this idea, though it does apparently have the support of Sepp Blatter. Valcke said
“If I can express myself as Jerome Valcke, only, not FIFA’s Secretary General, I would say that I don’t understand it,”
“If it transpires that a tournament with 24 teams is more difficult to organise in just one or two countries…that destroys the spirit of the competition.”
One of the huge benefits to having a tournament based in one or two countries is that it becomes a celebration of the host nation (or host nations). It’s a chance for a country to show off a bit and for fans, many of who will be coming to that country for the first time, to experience the culture and traditions of these countries. Also, it’s a chance for visiting fans to congregate and meet people from all over the continent.
That will all go in one fell swoop. Fans will only stay in one place for a day or so at the most, which not only prevents fans from seeing anything other than the football matches, but denies fans the chance to mingle. These tournaments cost a lot to stage, but countries do it knowing that they’ll get a lot of tourist money both for the tournament, and in the future as if a visitor comes to a country for the first time and enjoy themselves, chances are they’ll come again.
UEFA have made their decision and, as a result, EURO 2020 will now be held all over Europe. Platini claims that this decision and the decision to expand the European Championships is all about including more teams and more fans, which in theory is a laudable notion. However, I can’t help but feeling the reality will be a diluted version of the existing tournament, which the ordinary fan is priced out of attending.
Michel Platini clearly doesn’t subscribe to the philosophy of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”
Not to sound overly cliche or anything…but why the hell doesn’t England want 2020? They could host the damn thing on like 15 minutes of notice.
As for the rest of your blog. I think you raise an interesting point regarding the competitiveness of games and how much easier it’ll be to qualify, however I think those arguments can work the other way as well. You said that teams might resort to negative tactics to get through as a 3rd place finisher, however I say it’s just as likely that teams fighting to get through as a 3rd place finisher would be just as likely to go all out and get themselves into exciting back-and-forth, high scoring matches in their 3rd group game to try getting through.
And as for qualification, I think that giving the likes of Latvia, Ireland, Scotland, Bosnia, and those other current fringe teams a better likelihood of qualifying will grow the game further in their countries, and those are the teams that are going to get themselves into offensive shootouts in order to make a name for themselves and to maybe become the tournament’s Cinderella story anyway, so I don’t think they’ll hurt the event at all.
Then there are the teams like Iceland, Montenegro, Cyprus, Finland, Lithuania, etc who would become the new fringe teams in a 24 team format. Think of how excited their fanbases will get during qualification next time knowing they have a shot.
Finally, and more controversially, how about the likes of Armenia, Georgia, Israel, Belarus, and Albania, who either suffer from considerable poverty (the latter two) or are relatively war-ravaged (the former 3) and don’t have all that much going for them. Think of what it would do for the people to see their country in the Euros.
All in all I disagree with most of what you said, but its still a well-written and well-argued blog and I enjoyed it.
Firstly, thanks for the comment.
I think many of those teams you mention have a shot now.
Montenegro are one of Europe’s beter sides (and went unbeaten in 2012), Iceland and Belarus have exciting under-21 teams, so the future looks bright for them. I saw Belarus’ olymmpic team and was impressed. Armenia have been a much-improved side over the last few years. Its not out of the question for those sides to have qualified if the old format was retained.
In a 16 team format, there will always be good teams that miss out. Switzerland, Slovakia, Serbia and Slovenia went to the 2010 World Cup but not EURO 2020. I think that increases the competitiveness of the tournament, which is what makes it generally so good, and that should be protected.
why not make it 32 teams
After the WC 2018 bid fiasco, where a lot of money got England two (?) votes, I doubt England is going to bid to host a tournament for quite a while. Whilst the EC bid process most probably isn’t the corrupt mess the WC bid process seems to be, I can well see why they wouldn’t bid.
England got two votes for the 2018 WC bid, and one of those was their own!
There are severe austerity measures being taken in the UK at present, with several public services and welfare being cut and I think people would (rightly) object to those having been taken away for a lack of money, but money having been provided to host EURO 2020. I think a bid would prove to be a political own-goal that an already very unpopular government would like to avoid.
Yes.
I didn’t read all of the fine details of your blogpost but I definitely agree with the overall points. More is not always better. American fans have a hard time recognizing this. Playoffs can be very exciting but when too many teams get to move in each round it waters it down. I think Americans who love expansive playoffs are like obese Americans who can’t get enough junk food.
Why the swipes at the “Americans” who allegedly are in favor of this?
FTR, our continental championship has a 12-team finals, and nobody is pushing to expand that.
yes but we have our continental championship once every two years which is another type of the problem that more is not always better. Thinking of this format change makes me think of the NBA regular season including an 82 game regular season after which half of the league moves onto the playoffs. At least MLS has progressed from the time when 8 out of 10 teams qualified for the playoffs.
I did read the whole post, and I hope snarky people who acknowledge their ignorance in an opening statement and proceed to go off on a rant against an unrelated nationality are as amusing to others as they are to me. I live in Texas…I see some good stuff, but you’re competing.
Also not at all thrilled with the expansion. I used to consider the Euros, match for match, more exciting than the World Cup. I doubt this will be the case from now on.
As far as the “hostless” format, I am also not thrilled. I wonder how much of this can be credited to the awful travel and accommodation situation in Ukraine last year. Of course, UEFA only has themselves to blame for that, nobody forced them to have it there.
What? Awful travel and accomodation in Ukraine? Where you there? I was, and that wasn’t really the case to be honest.
I admit that I did not attend, but on the other hand I have traveled Ukraine and spent a lot of time there. I find travel and accommodation to be trying in many places just as an individual traveler. Glad to hear you had a positive experience, but I have heard from a LOT of people who are angry they were forced to visit Donestsk.
And don’t forget about those two Americans who led the expansion of the World Cup from 16 teams to 32, Jack Havelange and Joe Blatter.
its all about proportions – not the exact number of participants. if 32 are in the world cup, but 200+ are competing to trying to be one of those 32 teams, that’s a lot lower percentage of qualifiers than 24 out of 53. And then with the group stage where 16 out of 24 move on make the group stage much less interesting.
Just give it up. You shot your credibility when you ranted about “Americans” wanting to ruin the Euros when there are no Americans in UEFA by definition.
you ought to improve your reading comprehension. None of my comments blamed any of these Euro changes on the Americans, but rather indicated that this problem of overexpanding to produced more money while providing a worse product is shared by Americans.
I’m going to offer a differing opinion here. As a journalist, I hate the current Gold Cup traveling road show. I can’t afford to follow the tournament from venue to venue. My former hard core fan self would also hate the huge expense.
But that’s just me. They’ve done it twice now and the attendance numbers show that it’s a great business decision. Ticket sales are way up.
Spreading the Gold Cup around (or the Euros) does make it very difficult for the fan that has to follow a given team, but conversely it makes it far, far easier for fans who don’t have the means to travel at all to make at least one game (that is near them).
The extreme counter example will be Qatar 2022. Which on the surface looks great. But the ability of people to easily go to a couple games a day, every day will mean that the available ticket inventory for the non-1%ers will be possibly the lowest ever. I’m also pretty sure that lodging will also be pretty hard to come by. If you got unlimited wealth and an unlimited appetite for going to WC games, Qatar 2022 is for you. Not so much the rest of us.
The last couple of Gold Cups and Euro 2020 – while they inconvenience the fans (and media) that have traditionally attended the tournaments, they definitely open up seats and opportunities to many who otherwise would never have the chance to attend.
I don’t want to oversell the idea. But there’s definitely positives to a different format. Whether they outweigh the negatives depends on your perspective.
I support it for purely selfish reasons. If expansion finally gets Scotland back into a major final. I’m thrilled.
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This is a well-written, well-thought out blog. While I’m one who generally dislikes the dilution of any competition, I don’t believe expanding the tournament to 24 teams would necessarily water-down the Euros. A number of pretty decent teams did not qualify last time, teams like Belgium, Turkey, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Norway. These teams are legitimate WC Qualifier contenders. Then you have teams like Hungary, Romania, Montenegro and Slovenia who will probably not make it to the next World Cup, but are not going to get run over by the competition in the tournament. These are pretty solid teams.
With that said, I complete agree with you about holding the competition in different cities throughout Europe. Traveling between cities will be a nightmare. Also, with a 24 team tournament, you could host the tournament using only 8 stadiums. I don’t see the need for 10.
The best tournament was Euro 2004, when the team nobody expected actually ended up winning it.
Haters gonna hate!
To follow up on the question of what to do for the “middle of the pack” teams, and providing a higher standard of competition. Concacaf did struggle with those questions in both their Champions League format (where the first-round got reduced; same number of teams [24] but a truncated format), and their World Cup Qualifying (where the original plan was to have group play in the rounds of 32, 16, and 8 [all countries participating]; which got reduced to rounds of 24 [top countries got byes our of this round], 12, and 6). I agree that the discussed UCL-only tournamant will be a kick in the teeth to the middle-ground leagues, but as you do sort of bring up, is a tournament primarially meant to create a champion, or to have the wide-spread goal of increasing level of play all-around?
Platini is trying to play to the Lichtenstein and Moldova FAs because they are tired of 6-and-out every two years.
When the WC was 24 teams with 16 teams advancing, the 3/1/0 made it unlikely that a team that was 0-3-0 (and had a 0 GD by definition) would advance. All the teams that were 1-1-1 would advance ahead, and even a team that was 1-0-2 with the same point total would have a shot, if they won by enough in their one win. At WC94, it took 4 points to get in the top 16 out of 24, and the closest team cut was Russia, who was 1-0-2 with a +1 GD.
I also think the likelihood of dead rubbers is low, unless you’re building in the assumption that teams don’t want to win their group. It might happen in qualifying more, depending on how you structure that. And on the other side, the match between two teams who are both already out (something relatively rare in the customary 2-out-of-4 arrangement) will disappear completely.
The qualifiers for euro2016 will be really dull, especially for the big countries, with 24 out of 52 or 53 teams qualifying.
Could be. (Perhaps it should be re-configured for the enlarged tournament.) And I’m apparently ill-placed as an American to determine when more isn’t better, but in the case of the actual tournament, I don’t think it hurts.
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