Turkey ‘deserves to host Euro 2024 finals’

ANKARA

Turkey deserves to be selected as the host country for the 2024 European Football Championships, thanks to its strong preparations, according to the country’s football federation chief.

“We have worked a lot and deserved the right to host the Euro 2024 finals,” Turkish Football Federation (TFF) chief Yıldırım Demirören said on June 1 at the federation’s congress.

“We have presented a very strong dossier to the UEFA,” added Demirören.

“The guarantees by our state, the new 92,000-capacity Olympic Stadium, the new football sanctuary to be built in Ankara, the 2024 memorial forest, our broad means of transportation will bring us the finals.”

In its bid to the UEFA, the TFF said nine host cities — Istanbul, Ankara, Bursa, Kocaeli, Eskişehir, Konya, Antalya, Gaziantep and Trabzon — will have been connected through high-speed trains by 2023 when the country will achieve a total capacity of 1 billion passengers annually owing to an investment worth 24 billion euros.

Turkey is competing against the German bid to host the European international football’s showpiece event.

The UEFA Executive Committee will meet in Nyon on Sept. 27 to pick the Euro 2024 host country.

Demirören said Turkey’s bid has strong support of the public and the foreign players in Turkish football leagues.

“We will bring a new enthusiasm to European football, we are ready for this as the whole country,” he said.

The TFF chair recalled that Turkey will host two football finals back-to-back, the UEFA Super Cup final in 2019, followed by the Champions League final the next year.

“These two finals dreamed by everyone shows that Turkey is a very important organizational partner of the UEFA,” Demirören said.

“How many federations in the world can get the chance to host two European finals in two years? This success is a great source of honor for both our federation and our country. It is a proof of the confidence shown in Turkey,” he added.