Stadiums at the women’s European Football Championship, some of which can hold significantly fewer than 10,000 spectators, are a source of criticism. The organizers are fighting back.
“We feel it’s still the right decision”said former world footballer Nadine Kessler, who heads up women’s football at UEFA: “When you increase the capacity of the tournament from 430,000 to 720,000, you can’t say that the tournament organizers aren’t ambitious enough.”
Manchester City’s Academy Stadium in particular, with only 4,400 seats as the EM arena, caused displeasure.
Gunnarsdottir: “Embarrassing and disrespectful”
The Icelander and former Wolfsburg player Sara Björk Gunnarsdottir described the decision for this venue as “embarrassing” and “disrespectful”. “I was hoping it might change”said Hanna Glas from Bayern Munich. The defender will play with the Swedes in the last group game against Portugal in the Leigh Sports Villagewhich also only offers 8,000 seats. “We want as much audience as possible, so it’s a shame”agreed teammate Rebecka Blomqvist (VfL Wolfsburg).
There is also criticism from Germany. “That should no longer be the claim at a European Championship that is so hyped”wrote the former national player Annike Krahn in her “kicker” column: “I would have expected UEFA to choose stadiums that can seat at least 10,000 spectators.”
The opening game between England and Austria on July 6th will be played at Old Trafford, with the final on July 31st at Wembley. The total number of tickets sold is approaching half a million, more than doubling the number of viewers for Euro 2017 in the Netherlands.
Lots of tickets not sold yet
But it is also true that more than 200,000 EM tickets have not yet been sold. And: The organizers literally had to fight for venues when it came to awarding the 2018 finals. “If you think people kicked in our door to host games, think again”, revealed FA chief executive Mark Bullingham. Under the impression of constant new audience records in Europe, he admitted: “The event we are running this summer will be far larger than the event we planned and anticipated when we applied.”
The DFB selection is spared the problem. The record European champions caught a hammer group in the draw, so they play in the preliminary round against Denmark (July 8) and Spain (July 12) in London-Brentford (17,000 seats) and against Finland (July 16) in Milton Keynes ( 30,000).