It is dark blue, has lettering such as "In the heart of Europe", "UEFA Euro 2024" and "United by Football" stuck to it and will run on all of the transport company's routes.

Since Tuesday, the UEFA tram has been the first visible sign that Frankfurt will host the European Football Championship in summer 2024 along with nine other cities.

On Tuesday, the so-called kick-off, the beginning of the championship planning, took place in the arena in the city forest.

Kevin Hanschke

volunteer.

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At the press conference, which was attended by Mayor Peter Feldmann (SPD), Stefan Sauer (CDU), State Secretary in the Hessian Ministry of the Interior and Sport, and EM ambassador Célia Šašić, former top scorer of 1. FFC presented the first concepts for Frankfurt.

Thirty representatives from UEFA and EURO 2024 GmbH, the events joint venture between the German Football Association (DFB) and the European Football Association (UEFA), will be in Frankfurt until the end of the week to hold talks and monitor planning progress for to inspect the orientation of the EM.

The tournament director is former Bayern international Philipp Lahm, who canceled the kick-off date because he was in quarantine.

By 2024, a total of 600 employees will be responsible for organizing the EM in Frankfurt.

The kick-off is also the prelude to the "specialist workshops" in which ideas for the individual plans of the overall concept are to be collected.

In addition to the topic of sustainability, the focus of the EM organization would also be the question of mobility, logistics, social inclusion in the city, safety and the values ​​of sport.

"We want to keep the ecological footprint of EM as small as possible," says Feldmann.

"Successful preparations"

This is one of the reasons why the focus of this European Championship is on traffic.

In addition to the conversion of the football arena, local public transport is "strongly" included in the plans for the EM.

The location of the city "in the heart of Europe" and the internationality "with 180 nations and over 200 languages" are arguments for a successful EM.

Frankfurt is therefore the perfect venue for the "Festival of Diversity and Sustainability", said Feldmann.

He wants to organize an EM where fans and footballers can “celebrate together carefree” and which will “have lasting effects on the city and urban society”.

Sauer also emphasized the "successful preparations in Frankfurt" and the good exchange between the state of Hesse, the city and UEFA".

Close cooperation is also planned with the DFB Academy and the German Olympic Sports Confederation.

In June, the city has to submit a first "host city concept" to UEFA, where the topics dealt with in the workshops have to be accompanied by clear plans.

On October 9th, the draw for the qualifying group phase 2022 for the European Championship will take place in the Festhalle. "We are also preparing for that at full speed," says Feldmann.

"The EM will be the first major sporting event in Frankfurt after the pandemic.

We want people to come together and stand together.

This is a strong signal from the sports city of Frankfurt for Europe”.

Šašić added that she hopes

In the final goal wall shooting, which was also held in the other nine venues, there was initially no goal.

Only in the last round did Célia Šašić score, Sauer equalized to make it 1-1.

Feldmann remained goalless, but did not lose his sense of humor.

“There will definitely be more goals at the European Championship.

Football and Frankfurt – they belong together.”