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Empty FC Bayern Munich stadium: This is not how the venue should look like during the European Championship - if Uefa has its way
Photo:
Sven Hoppe / dpa
The German Football Association (DFB) remains in the race with Munich for the time being to host the European Football Championship.
The Bavarian state capital has cleared the first formal hurdle and submitted concepts for partial admission of viewers in good time before the deadline on Wednesday.
The city of Munich confirmed this to the dpa news agency and the sports information service (SID).
»The DFB and the host city of Munich are still planning different scenarios for Uefa EURO 2020 as far as possible spectators in the stadium are concerned.
The documents are now being submitted accordingly, ”Munich informed the dpa.
Which scenario can ultimately be implemented depends on the current pandemic in June and July.
"In this respect, it is of course conceivable and desirable that spectators can be in the stadium at the four games in Munich." The city generally assured: "A withdrawal was and is not an issue from Munich's point of view."
The European Football Union Uefa had previously announced that the twelve European Championship host cities had submitted their concepts for hosting the games.
"We had set the deadline for April 7th, so it is gratifying that all cities have already responded positively," said UEFA tournament director Martin Kallen to the Danish sports broadcaster TV3 Sport at the beginning of the week.
In this first step, the twelve hosts only had to assure their willingness in principle to play games with fans.
A guarantee for the admission of viewers has not yet been requested at this stage of the decision-making process.
A decision on the format of the European Championship should then be made at the meeting of the UEFA Executive Committee on April 19 and 20, or by the end of the month at the latest.
Pressure on Munich is growing
Uefa officially asserts that no city that has to be played behind closed doors will automatically be eliminated, but association president Aleksander Ceferin had said: “Every host must guarantee that fans are allowed to the games.
The option of some European Championship game being played without fans is off the table. «Several host cities had already reacted to this, and the pressure on Munich had also increased.
He could only appeal to the authorities "to enable viable concepts for at least partial admission of viewers to the games in Munich," DFB Vice President Rainer Koch had told SID.
He supported "the Uefa stance to want to play the European Championship games in front of spectators in principle".
The EM will open on June 11th in Rome, the final will take place on July 11th in London.
The three group matches of the German national team against world champions France (June 15), European champions Portugal (June 19) and co-hosts Hungary (June 23) as well as a quarter-finals (July 2) are to be hosted in the stadium of record champions FC Bayern.
ngo / dpa / sid
