EDITORIAL
The final of the 2024 Champions League may not take place in a European city, but in New York, UEFA is considering relocating the Queen's final match of club competitions. A heresy from a geographical point of view, because the United States has no club engaged in C1. And an additional offense made to football fans, analysis Tuesday the sports editorialist of Europe 1 Virginia Phulpin, very critical of this widening gap between bodies like UEFA and the public.
"By looking for a new audience, the authorities of football will eventually lose the old.Never the final of the Champions League was played elsewhere than in Europe.I must say that it is a European competition So it's quite logical, so there, New York, it would be a small revolution.
The goal of the maneuver is that football can conquer new territories. It's an obsession. It's understandable when we talk about a World Cup. It's global, we try to associate the entire planet, normal. It is even organized in areas where football does not excite many people. The United States, already, in 1994, Qatar in 2022. There, I can follow what is happening.
But the final of the Champions League? It's as ridiculous as playing the Super Bowl final in Paris, right? You have two European teams, they compete in the most anticipated game of the year, and you put an ocean between these teams and their supporters ... The worst thing is that it is not even an image. If we wanted to materialize the gap between fans and their passion, we would not do otherwise. In fact, we do not talk about football. We are talking about marketing and business partners. I'm not sure it's such a good calculation for UEFA.
It's more like a short-term vision.
After a while, there will be no more supporters at this rate. Imagine, you are a fan of a great European club that plays this Champions League every year. The price of subscriptions to the stadium has already exploded, it is very expensive, there are many people who make real sacrifices for their passion. If you want to follow your team on TV too, for outside matches, you need three paid subscriptions to not miss anything. And there, we plan to add a plane ticket to New York in 2024. If we want to end the popular sport, as much say it right away.
The problem is that a passion like football, it is transmitted to our children, to our friends. But how do you transmit passion when matches become so inaccessible? And then in the short-run series, UEFA has committed to planting 600,000 trees in the 12 Euro 2020 host countries, to offset the carbon emissions generated by the organization and supporters to get to the matches. But then, with a final in New York, how many trees will it be necessary to plant?