Soccerphile Editorial - September 2012
Platini's Vision is not 20/20
Last month it was announced that Wembley Stadium in London is hoping to welcome the Euro 2020 semi-finals and finals.
This surprise news is all part of UEFA President Michel Platini's grand projet of spreading the finals around his region's members, thus dispensing with the concept of a host nation.
A partisan home crowd in London for the last two games would help England of course, but a succession of tournaments has proved the Three Lions are quarter-final material at best.
Poor Turkey, who lost out to France for Euro 2016, allegedly courtesy of the clout of a certain Frenchman. They are now gunning for Euro 2020 but their dreams look certain to be spiked by Istanbul's concomitant application for the Olympic Games, as UEFA have all but confirmed.
That leaves two remaining bids on the table - Eire, Scotland & Wales and Georgia & Azerbaijan, neither of which might set the hearts racing but certainly merit consideration.
But on the eve of the Euro 2012 final, Platini threw a spanner in the works by suggesting "12 or 13 cities" across the continent could stage the finals instead. Come again - that means some countries would play at home and others would not, or....Platini promises to confirm if this idea has legs or not in the New Year, but for now some clarity on how it would pan out would be helpful.
Taking population, infrastructure and football heritage into account, the dozen hosts could be as follows: London, Paris, Moscow, Rome, Berlin, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Munich, Istanbul, Vienna and Manchester.
"It's an idea I feel really passionate about," Platini said ominously.
The Wembley announcement followed a meeting in London between Platini and the Football Association earlier last month, and comes on the back of a summer charm offensive from England's football lords at the 2012 Olympic Games.
F.A. boss David Bernstein entertained FIFA President Sepp Blatter privately in London only a year after trying in vain to delay his re-election in Zurich, and by all accounts the two are now getting on like old chums.
Now the concept of a multi-host tournament is taking flight, it looks like the end is nigh for the European Championship as we know it. Travelling to a major overseas tournament is as good as it gets for the football supporter, imbibing the culture of the host nation while mingling with fellow fans from several countries at once.
Anyone who attended the 2002 World Cup enjoyed the unique culture that is Japan and the surfed the wave of red fervour that was South Korea; South Africa was an extraordinarily diverse experience in 2010 and Brazil will likewise imprint the next World Cup with its own samba style.
Those are all World Cups, but it is not just the Euros which are threatened with upheaval: Platini again has advocated switching 2022 from Qatar to across the Arabian Peninsula. With the former midfield maestro poised to take the place of Blatter in 2015 at the top of world football, we ought to pay attention.
But if the status quo works, why fix it?
Euro 2012 might have been a joy to behold on the pitch, but was a pain in the neck for UEFA off it. Poland & Ukraine were not their preferred choice and only slipped into the winners' enclosure after a black summer of match-rigging in the Italian peninsula.
Platini clocked up the air miles to and from Ukraine in particular over the past four years, tearing much of what was left of his hair out and issuing several last-chance ultimatums to the hosts to get their house in order or be stripped of the finals.
In the end it went alright on the night more or less, but UEFA scored an own goal by failing to ensure the flights and hotels were affordable. Empty swathes of seats were seen on television and Platini himself slammed Ukraine's hoteliers as "bandits and crooks" in righteous outrage.
To avoid a repeat in 2020 must seem tempting, but the real reason for abandoning the single or dual host tradition lies in the expansion to 24 finalists, which begins with France 2016.
In Poland & Ukraine, only the Republic of Ireland looked out of their depth. But based on the qualifiers, Armenia, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Estonia, Montenegro, Hungary, Israel and Turkey would have been there too. With a couple of exceptions, the rich mix of this summer’s European Championship would have been diluted for the sake of extra €uros and meaningless matches.
The jump from 16 to 24 teams has gone down badly with anyone who recognised Euro 2012 as superior in quality to the increasingly tedious 32-nation World Cup Finals. Already international football boasts a purity the club game has ditched, and in years to come, Euro 2012 will be seen as the high-point of big tournaments.
For years FIFA and UEFA were content with organising great shows. But now they have to remind us at every turn of the mega-brand behind the products. As the revenues roll in from worldwide broadcasting rights, the European-based governing bodies of football are getting drunk on the idea of its monetary worth, forgetting its intrinsic value. And their ultimate paymasters, the players and supporters, appear to have no say.
There are even those who believe UEFA is out to challenge FIFA by inflating their big shows simultaneously in a race to see who will blink first.
Both bodies seem obsessed with empire-building instead of serving the football community, and with Platini ascending the steps of the FIFA Presidency while pursuing a myopic policy of perpetual growth, there seems no end in sight.
International football, by any sane measure, has got too big for its own good.
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