Germany will host the 2024 European Championship, UEFA announced in Nyon yesterday.
The country was chosen over Turkey, the only other bidder to stage the tournament, in a vote by members of the UEFA executive committee.
Seventeen of the 20 members voted, with German FA (DFB) president, Reinhard Grindel and Turkish counterpart, Servet Yardimci, not allowed to vote and Sweden’s Lars-Christer Olsson missing the vote due to health problems.
Speaking from the podium in the aftermath of the decision, Grindel said: “We will do all we can to meet all expectations … Many thanks for the trust, we will do all we can to justify it.”
Former Germany captain, Philipp Lahm, who led the country’s campaign as the DFB’s ambassador, has been named head of the organising committee.
“We have great stadiums,” he added. “We have supporters, who love football. We have people in Germany who would love to celebrate a big party with all of Europe.”
Germany last staged a major tournament in 2006, when it hosted the World Cup, with the former West Germany having staged the 1988 European Championship.
In 2024, 24 teams will play in 10 German cities, with matches taking place in Berlin, Dortmund, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg, Cologne, Leipzig, Munich and Stuttgart.
The aftermath of the summer’s World Cup, Germany’s worst since 1938, as the defending champions crashed out in the group stage, had led to tensions within the DFB, but all sides agreed to put the differences to one side and focus on winning the right to host the 2024 European Championship.
Following diplomatic tensions over the imprisonment of several German citizens in Turkey, the build-up to Germany’s World Cup was overshadowed by a photograph that Mesut Ozil and Ilkay Gundogan — both Germany players with Turkish heritage — had taken with Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan in mid-May.
Ozil, who retired from the Germany team in July, citing racism in the DFB, said he had done nothing wrong in meeting Erdogan.
“He did not leave the Germany national team without a reason,” the Turkish president told Funke Media. “Everyone else battling those racist attacks and insults would have shown the same reaction.
“Mesut Ozil’s statement that he’s German when they win and an immigrant when they lose sums up the discrimination of players in Germany fairly well.”