"We are very satisfied"

UEFA takes positive stock of the tournament before the European Championship final

The European Championship trophy(Bild: AP/Markus Schreiber)

The European Football Union (UEFA) has drawn a positive balance shortly before the end of the European Football Championship!

"We are very, very satisfied with how the tournament went. We had so many fans here in Germany from all over Europe who came here peacefully and celebrated and cheered on their team," said UEFA Head of Competitions Martin Kallen. Out of 51 matches, only the final on Sunday in Berlin between Spain and England is still to be played.

"There have been few surprises!"
"The organization was very, very good. The matches were good. There were few surprises," said Kallen from Switzerland at a reception in Munich to honor the volunteers. Kallen found the streakers during the tournament "very annoying".

"The other part was the Ronaldomania!"
Some of it was commercialism and there were people who paid for it, said the UEFA man. "That's one part of the streakers. The other part was Ronaldomania, where Ronaldo as a superstar simply electrified people so much that they wanted to take a selfie with him."

"You should be able to play through a soccer match!"
The incidents were not ideal. "You should be able to play through a soccer match. But we lived with it and kept adapting to the fact that we had less and less," he said.

"The track offer is actually large and varied!"
In addition to the speedsters, there were also repeated difficulties with transportation and Deutsche Bahn. We have known for a long time that the railroads had problems, said Kallen. "But what you also saw was that there were a lot of trains. The supply is very high."

He traveled by train every day and made sure that he arrived at least three hours in advance. The buffer was enough. "I then adjusted a bit. Sometimes it's a bit of a hassle, but there's actually a wide and varied range of options."

The railroad was criticized several times during the tournament for its performance. Just this week, the Dutch team had to travel to the semi-final from Wolfsburg to Dortmund by plane instead of train due to a last-minute train failure.