The case in summary The EC in Germany has been criticized for poor organization and logistical problems. Supporters, press and football club managers have expressed frustration over, among other things, transport problems and long queues. England’s Official Supporters’ Association has asked Uefa to take action to prevent similar situations in the future. The state-owned train company Deutsche Bahn has taken self-criticism for the problems and says it is doing its best to get the supporter groups into the stadium on time. The summary is made by an AI service from OpenAi. The content is quality assured by news’s journalists before publication. – The biggest triumph of the Germans is to get a whole lot of people to believe the myth that they are so effective, wrote The Guardian’s renowned sports commentator Jonathan Liew a few months before the EC. So far, it seems that he has kept his word. Namely, it has not gone completely smoothly for the EC organizers outside the pitch. – A 17.5 hour nightmare Several countries’ supporters and visitors are very critical of the treatment they have received and how Germany has arranged for the masses of people who have made the trip to see the championship with their own eyes. A LOT OF PEOPLE: There are many who have traveled to Germany to watch the EC. Photo: Angelika Warmuth / Reuters Martin Lipton, The Sun’s chief football reporter, had an early suspicion that the championship would pose a problem. “It should have been a quiet day, a simple journey from Frankfurt to Munich and back to hear Uefa’s head of referees Roberto Rosetti explain how VAR and his team would work together in the European Championship. But it turned out to be a 17.5-hour nightmare when all the horror stories about the German railway network became frustratingly true,” he writes in the newspaper. When Scotland was to play the opening match against the host nation Germany, a new problem arose. “The supporters who were going to the Allianz Arena were caught in a travel chaos”, writes Talksport. – The worst organization I have seen. Dave Cormack, who is the chairman of the Scottish top club Aberdeen, is among those who have traveled to Germany to follow their home country in the EC. He passes a harsh judgment on what happened in the opening match: – European Championship 2024 is the worst organization I have seen at a match. I have stood in line for over an hour, and there are still tens of thousands of people trying to get in. What is the German efficiency, he asks on X. news has contacted Cormack, but he has not yet responded to our inquiries. FULL TRAIN: The England fans had a bad experience in connection with the first game against Serbia. Photo: Markus Schreiber / AP Expressen commentator Noa Bachner is in Germany and has also felt the problem on her body. “The transport system is collapsing, the congestion is suffocating and nobody knows what is going on. The mind grows in Germany. After three days, the EC is a success on the field – and dangerous outside,” wrote Bachner in a comment in the Swedish newspaper recently. He labels the whole thing as “an organizational inferno”, and uses his own train trip to Düsseldorf as an example. “The train was already heavily delayed when it was difficult in Cologne. Information had to be guessed at. There was standing room for the last bit. The journey took seven hours in total. Such things happen, I thought. But similar testimonies come from other parts of the country all the time, and when there is a fight the same pattern occurs. People stand still, do not come forward, are left behind, understand nothing, have no one to ask, no solutions are offered, crowding. And people are getting very angry,” writes Bachner. DELAYS: This is just one example of a delayed train during the EC. Several have experienced long waiting times and poor information when problems occur. Photo: Vegard Blodstrupmoen Lien / news – Simply ridiculous England’s official supporters’ association Free Lions has already issued an arbitrary appeal to Uefa to take action after the situation that arose when the English played their first match in the tournament. According to The Guardian, there were so few train departures that the waiting time at the station stretched to over three hours for the majority of the supporters who wanted to go home from the match between Serbia and England. Those who got on the train were like herring in a barrel, write the newspaper. – We are horrified by what the fans had to go through in the game in Gelsenkirchen yesterday. Seeing supporters stuck at the station in Gelsenkirchen for three hours after the match has finished due to a transport problem in a major tournament is simply ridiculous, they write in a statement. The grouping further calls on Uefa to guarantee sufficient transport options to prevent similar incidents from happening again. The English Football Association is taking the situation seriously. – We are clear about the problem our supporters experienced in Gelsenkirchen and will ensure that their feedback reaches the EC organisation, writes the FA. MANY TRAVELERS: England fans have turned up in droves for the EC. Photo: Thilo Schmuelgen / Reuters – We regret that news has contacted both Uefa and the state-owned train company Deutsche Bahn and submitted to them the criticism that comes out in this case. Uefa has not yet responded to news’s inquiry, but Deutsche Bahn takes self-criticism for the problems that have arisen. – Unfortunately, in recent days there have been some operating restrictions for fans and visitors on their way to the stadium. We apologize for this and any inconvenience this has caused. We do our best to get the supporter groups into the stadium on time, writes a spokesperson to news. – Football fans still know that as soon as the referee blows the whistle, everyone goes home. It can get crowded on the platform and the large number of visitors can lead to major setbacks. As an important partner in local transport, DB is in close contact with the public transport authorities, the municipal transport companies and the state in order to analyze processes and improve them where possible, they write further. – Could have overlooked an isolated incident The Guardian’s Jonathan Liew has dedicated an entire commentary to the logistics problem in Germany. He believes that the European Championship 2024 joins the ranks of sporting events that he labels as indifferent when it comes to the public’s well-being and experience. – And the only point here is that there should probably be a better way to do all this. If this was an isolated incident, we could overlook it. But there have already been transport problems in most of the host cities, endless delays on the railway network and terrible overcrowding on public transport, he writes. GOOD SPORTS: So far, EC has received a lot of praise for what has happened on the mat. Outside, there have been several problems. Photo: Kai Pfaffenbach / Reuters TV 2’s reporter Arilas Berg Ould-Saada covers the championship from Germany. He emphasizes that he is speaking on his own behalf, but says that he has had mixed experiences so far. – We drive a rental car in Germany, so I know little about public transport other than the chaos I have seen on social media. The most positive thing has been the traffic in and out of the arenas and the car parks. There, Germany is in a special class. But what has surprised me most negatively, is how little advance they act on the number of people going into the stadium, says Ould-Saada to news. ON THE PLACE: Arilas Berg Ould-Saada covers the European Championship for TV 2. Photo: Fredrik Varfjell / NTB – Withstood the storm He said that the channel had to queue for well over an hour to enter the media entrance in Gelsenkirchen before the match between England and Serbia . – One security check was planned for hundreds of journalists, who stood in the rain for up to an hour and a half. And although the queue got longer and longer, no steps were taken to improve the situation. The TV 2 reporter believes it was a disaster. – But in the end it is just a detail; I have little to complain about and am very grateful to experience this wonderful folk festival, he adds. news’s reporter Harald Thingnes is also in Germany. He is clear that it is not a sin for those who get to travel to the championship and work, but says this about the impression of the German railway so far. – We have had one longer train journey so far, when the train was 35 minutes late. And when it first arrived, half the train set was gone, so we didn’t get the seats we had booked. There was simply no room for everyone who actually had a ticket on the train, he says on the phone from Germany. Thingnes points out that the press are often in a special position because they go to the stadium early and travel home long after the match ends, and in that way are spared the largest crowds. CROWDED FOR PLACE: news had actually reserved seats on the train, but half the train sets made it difficult. Photo: Vegard Blodstrupmoen Lien / news – We cannot postpone an overhaul It is not the case that there is a problem all over the host country either. Several of news’s employees in Germany have also had good experiences with public communications. According to the AFP news agency, the German railway operator Deutsche Bahn could report a huge deficit of more than 2.3 billion euros in 2023. Record investments of more than 7.6 billion euros must take much of the blame for that. Deutsche Bahn director Richard Lutz then stated that they have no choice when it comes to the massive spending of money. – We cannot postpone an overhaul and modernization of our infrastructure, he said then. According to the German DW, almost a third of all train departures in Germany in 2023 were delayed by six minutes or more. 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