By Andrew Warshaw
April 24 – With so much focus concentrated on the narrative over the 2026 World Cup vote, it may have been forgotten that there is another battle going on to stage the European Championship finals two years earlier.
German FA president Reinhard Grindel today submitted his country’s bid book for 2024 to UEFA General Secretary Theodore Theodoridis in a typically formal ceremony that will give way to a tough fight with Turkey over the coming months.
He was accompanied by DFB general secretary Dr Friedrich Curtius, bid ambassador Philipp Lahm and the DFB’s ambassador for integration Celia Šašić.
Germany’s submission came ahead of the April 27 deadline and will be followed in the days to come by that of the Turks, the only other bidders for the tournament.
“We are submitting an excellent bid concept for a perfectly organised tournament, which offers a great opportunity for UEFA to further develop European football,” said Grindel.
“EURO 2024 staged in the heart of Europe will enable all of the participants to be given the best possible support by their fans. At the same time, we are building bridges between people of different nations, and are making an important contribution to bringing alive both the values of football and those of a modern civil society.”
Interestingly, Germany have devised a new organisational strategy with Curtius explaining: “A key principle of UEFA EURO 2024 in Germany should be to share football knowledge with all national football associations across Europe.
“We want to be more than just a good host of the EURO; we would like all of UEFA’s associations to benefit from this tournament. Consequently, from the start of the planning phase, we will involve all of the UEFA member associations in the organisation and staging of the tournament, thereby providing modern knowledge-sharing platforms.”
In the coming weeks, the UEFA administration will start evaluating the final bid dossiers.
“During this evaluation phase, bidders may be required by UEFA to elaborate upon and substantiate their bids as described in their bid dossiers,” a UEFA statement said.
UEFA will then prepare and publish a written evaluation report on each bid with the all-important vote taking place on September 27.
Germany have staged three major footballing competitions in the past – the World Cup in 1974, the European Championship in 1988 as West Germany, and the World Cup again in 2006. Turkey, conversely, have never been hosts and are hoping for fourth time lucky having failed with bids for 2008 (jointly with Greece), 2012 and 2016.
For the first time the hosts must meet specific criteria related to human rights. That could spell bad news for the Turks who are desperate to finally stage Europe’s showpiece competition but who may find it difficult to comply with the new rules.
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