Wednesday, October 06, 2021
Logo presented for 2024
The last European championship ever
By Stephan Uersfeld, Berlin
The EM 2024 will take place in Germany. That has not yet penetrated everywhere. The preparations, however, are already in the critical phase. The logo will be presented in Berlin on Tuesday. The UEFA boss is there too, but leaves before he has to say anything.
“What? The European Championship is in Germany? I didn’t even know that,” said the landlady of a corner bar in Berlin on late Tuesday. “But the logo looks good.” Then she turns back to her business. Check vaccination certificates, pour beer. A few hours beforehand, at 8.24 p.m., UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin takes a few steps at the marathon gate of the Berlin Olympic Stadium to place the Coupe Henri-Delaunay, the European Championship trophy, on a podium.
Around 200 guests from the town halls of the republic and other celebrities, all of whom had strolled like ghosts over the tartan track of the stadium into the guest block, follow his steps, which ultimately lead him to tournament director Philipp Lahm. Standing on the steps of the marathon gate, they look together at the light show in the Olympic Stadium, with which the tournament logo for the next European Championship in 2024 will be presented.
“United by Football. United in the heart of Europe” is the slogan of the tournament, which the EM logo is intended to underpin with immediate effect. The colors of all 55 members of UEFA united in 24 segments for the 24 participating countries for the winner’s cup. Inspired by the roof of the Berlin Olympic Stadium, designed by a Portuguese agency, the new brand symbol skips the low bar of the 2006 World Cup with uninhibited, laughing ecstasy pills. The logos of the so-called “host cities” also presented, the host cities, also show the landmarks determined by the cities. In Berlin the Brandenburg Gate, in Frankfurt the Römer, in Hamburg the Elbphilharmonie, in Leipzig the Völkerschlachtdenkmal, in Dortmund the U. The choice was mostly logical. Only in Gelsenkirchen, the unmarked football city in the Ruhr area, a bit more problematic.
“I’m in favor of it staying that way”
After the world tournament in Russia 2018, the EM 2020 spread all over Europe, which was held under pandemic conditions in 2021 and the upcoming World Cup 2022 in Qatar, the tournament in Germany has good chances as the first classic football tournament since the European Championship 2016 in France to set an example. Possibly also as the last classic tournament of its kind. In 2026, the World Cup, divided over three countries, will follow in the USA, Mexico and Canada with 48 nations. After that, FIFA boss Gianni Infantino is planning a new World Cup rhythm. The tournament is to be held every two years. The European Championship is looking for its place in between.
While UEFA President Ceferin mysteriously becomes invisible after his appearance on the steps of the marathon gate and disappears from the stadium, EM tournament director Lahm speaks out against the FIFA plans on the tartan track. “Other sports also have the right to be in the limelight,” he says. “Every two years a major event, a world championship or a European championship is enough. I am in favor of keeping it that way.”
Otherwise there will be a lot of buzzwords that evening. You want to leave traces, says Lahm, and also says sustainability, the environment. Big issues of this time that the organizers of the tournament now want to address with the federal states and the federal government. Mobility, but also sustainability in cooperation. How all this should look like, what exactly should happen, remains open on this evening in the almost deserted Olympic Stadium. Only the next step is taken here today. The pandemic has not yet been defeated, but we are looking ahead. For a time when there will be no more restrictions.
“We can look ahead again. That is a starting point,” says Lahm, referring to the time-out under Corona. He hopes that the EM 2024 “will be an event where people come together, meet, celebrate and mourn together. In three years the world will look a little different,” adds the EM tournament director on the blue tartan track of the Olympic Stadium. “Corona will still exist, but the countermeasures are greater than they were now.” The 17th European Football Championship is to take place from June 14th to July 14th, 2024 with 24 participating nations in ten German cities. Berlin is considered the favorite for the final location, but a final decision is still pending. It is expected in March 2022.
DFB director Oliver Bierhoff also came that evening. He’s happy about the logo. “It fits in with the zeitgeist and has a lot of content,” he says. “I think it’s really very successful. Everything is included. The bright colors fit. It’s simple and yet very colorful. And it arouses anticipation for the tournament.” The tournament, the second European Championship in Germany after 1988, which begins in 981 days. “I’ve been counting them backwards for days,” says Lahm. The landlady brings the beer in the corner bar. “Qatar in winter. There’s the World Cup next year,” she says.