Michel Platini said that it will be debated if the Euros 2020 will be spread all across Europe in 12-13 cities. If you ask me, that's a great idea. It limits the risks for smaller/poorer countries because all they need is one stadium. The distances for travel are acceptable and it's way easier for a lot of Europeans to visit and participate. What do you think?
Horrible idea. I like the charm of having a tournament in a particular country.. all the big nations and fans coming to your country playing in your stadiums. If this idea makes it through it's just like a CL
It would be different because all matches are played in less than 4 weeks and it would be more of a Europe expirience, it's also still international football. It's right the tourney will lose this unique flair of one special countrie's culture but this can also be a double edged sword, when the circumstances for fans are just difficult. Also this could be the chance for countries that are way too small to organize it alone or would suffer from it in a long term.
6 countries hosting 6 groups and the playoff sound nice. maybe 12 stadiums in Finland-Estonia-Latvia-Lithuania-Belarus. or a Carpatos 2020, Bulgary-Romania-Hungary-Serbia. or the big 6 Spain England-Germany-Italy-France -Poland
My understanding is that ticket sales were really bad for a lot of countries. I guess this would be one way of redressing it. I don't see any other benefit though, kind of ruins the whole special nature of hosting a tournament.
I think it depends what your goals are. If the goal is to enable as many fans as possible to attend matches live and in person, then yes, the fact that you could have every match in a 70,000+ stadium if you spread the tournament across Europe is a big consideration. You could have two groups in the UK (Wembley, Old Trafford, Emirates, Cardiff), a group in Spain (Nou Camp & Bernabeu), a group in Italy (Olympico & San Siro), a group in Germany (Allianz Arena, Signal Iduna Park, Olympiastadion Berlin), and a group split between Paris (Stade de France) & Germany/UK (see above). Given that the past three of the past four tournaments have been jointly hosted, the we should have it in one country argument doesn seem to have that much influence anymore....
I think this is more to do with UEFA not being to happy with the two bids to host 2020 than really wanting six host countries.
Nothing to LOL about. Fero listed the largest six countries by population in the EU. And that's probably what he meant when he said the "Big Six".
The other problem IMO is while it essentially guarantees that locals from many large areas will be able to attend matches, it poses problems for travelling supporters the same way a large country hosting a WC like a USA or Brazil does. It's nice to be able to rely upon rail to get fans around for the majority of their transit. If this is a way of saying, "We want to host in 3-4 smaller countries in a region of Europe", then fine. The tournament will be bloated at 24 anyway, so there is no harm in making this a 20-21 team + 3-4 host tourney so that Czech, Slovak, Hungary can do a joint bid or a Scandanavian Euro can be held. This is quite a bit different than taking a dozen high profile cities with nice venues and spreading things out from the Iberian and England all the way to Russia and Turkey.
The only advantage would be that small countries could host some matches. That would be nice for those few small countries, but it would be bad for everyone else. Fans would have to travel longer distances and the Euros would lack the flair which is associated with fans from all over Europe converging in one country, and this one country showcasing itself to the world and playing host to a big party. Platini's plan is very much like the old times when not only the group games but also most of the EC finals (except semifinals and championship game) were played in home and away matches. In fact, if your main priority is participation of small countries it would make more sense to drop the EC finals altogether and have only home and away matches in some kind of league format. This would have many other advantages too, for instance that one team will always play in their own country (while according to Platini's plan, there could be a Portugal vs. Spain match in Estonia or in the Ukraine - and it would not nearly get the same interest from the local population as in Euro 2012 because they would not nearly be as pumped up as when they are hosts of a big Euro party. The interest of Spaniards and Portuguese or other Europeans would also be lower because who would want to spend all that money and time to travel to only one match?).