FRANKFURT AM MAIN, GERMANY – JUNE 17: Football fans travel by public transport in the city of Frankfurt… [+] Before the UEFA EURO 2024 Group E match between Belgium and Slovakia at the Deutsche Bank Park Arena in Frankfurt am Main, Germany on June 17, 2024. (Photo by Neil Baines – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
UEFA via Getty Images
After Albania's opening match against Italy in Dortmund, Paul Brown's train was rerouted because of a rock on the tracks. He arrived in Düsseldorf, his base for the first two weeks of Euro 2024, at 3am. Brown wasn't upset. He's a journalist. The delay suited him. A strange arrangement with his hosts meant he could only return to his Airbnb after 4am. Brown hurried back to the Airbnb after enjoying a late-night kebab at a joint run by former Germany international Lukas Podolski.
Brown is the exception in Germany, where fans and media across the Euro 2024 host nation have been frustrated by organisational chaos and major logistical delays.
Supporters warmed to the tournament after a COVID-19-disrupted Euro 2020 and one of the most controversial sporting events in modern history, the Qatar World Cup. At the heart of Europe, Germany is easy to access: the Tartan Brigade conquered Munich, Cologne and Stuttgart before being sent home to “think it over”, the Keleş-wielding Albanians took over the streets of Dortmund and Düsseldorf, and Turkish fans generated more than 100 decibels against Georgia. But just getting to and from the stadium to watch a match was often a nightmare.
Deutsche Bahn has been at the center of fans' despair. Trains are cancelled, delayed or overcrowded. Bundestag statistics show that in 2023 only 64% of all trains will reach their destination on time, the lowest on record. Deutsche Bahn is an exception to Germany's famous punctuality. “Due to increased short-term construction work throughout the year, DB has repeatedly pointed out that it will not reach its punctuality target of around 70%,” a Deutsche Bahn spokesman said.
“The German railways are in a terrible state,” said Harry Cathcart, a supporter who attended all three of Scotland's group stage matches and lived through the World Cup in Germany in 1974. “I thought the German trains were world class but basically they don't run to a timetable.”
UEFA and Deutsche Bahn offered free local transport travel at the tournament's six hubs. The railway, which was the Football Association's national partner during the tournament, offered passes that supporters could book at discounted rates. “Every train we were on was delayed,” said Cathcart's travelling companion, Gordon Raine, a long-time Scotland fan who first attended a major tournament at the 1990 World Cup in Italy. “Every train we were on was delayed. The travel arrangements were awful. Cologne-Munich was the worst, 90 minutes late. Of all the tournaments I've attended, that was the worst.”
The delays didn't just affect Cathcart, Laine and hundreds of thousands of other supporters. Even tournament director Philipp Lahm's train didn't arrive on time to watch Ukraine v Slovakia in Dusseldorf, where the group game was played. Belgium, Switzerland, Romania and the Netherlands are among the few teams to have used rail companies for the tournament, which UEFA is trying to position as a green European championship. “The cooperation is [with Deutsche Bahn] “It's going to be very close throughout the tournament,” he said.The transport issues have come as a tarnishment to the European governing body following its poor management of the 2022 and 2023 Champions League finals.
The problems extend to regional travel as well. Laing recalls dangerous scenes ahead of Scotland's opening match against Germany in Munich. After Scotland's match against Hungary, tram services in Cologne broke down, forcing supporters to walk back to the city centre. “Trains were unreliable, it was sweltering hot and packed with fans well beyond capacity,” the Tartan Army Club Association wrote.
“If UEFA insists on matches starting at 9pm, public transport must be improved. It's only a matter of time before something happens.”
The England vs. Serbia match in Gelsenkirchen was another flashpoint where local transport could not cope with supporters, but the city of Gelsenkirchen wrote: “There were no 'disruptions'. From our point of view, waiting times increased, but never reached a crisis point. For the Italy vs. Spain match, signage was improved and additional capacity was added around the stadium station (Willy Brand Allee). The city of Gelsenkirchen has developed a transport concept and is convinced that it meets its needs. When 50,000 people depart at the same time, long waiting times are inevitable.”
Professor Christopher Böttger of the Technical University of Berlin attributes the chaos to three factors: years of underinvestment in Germany's public transport system, the proliferation of social media, and the unique challenges that come with traveling by soccer fans. In his view, short-term political thinking is at the root of the underinvestment. “This is a problem in all Western democracies, but German public transport is a perfect example of it at the moment,” he said.
He added: “There is a widespread but vague feeling in Germany that many issues are going in the wrong direction: health care, defense, infrastructure, education.”
Activist group Allianz Pro Schine argued that this “should be a signal, especially to the federal government, that it is finally time to get its priorities right. We are now faced with a burden on the railways that has been neglected for many years, at the same time as traffic volumes are growing. The cumulative investments are very high – 92 billion euros – and it will take many years to improve the current state of the infrastructure.”
The first round finished on Wednesday with Georgia reaching the last 16 for the first time. There was further chaos around kick-off at Düsseldorf's main train station and on the U-Bahn station near the stadium. Laing watched the game from his home in Lyme Regis and is preparing for a holiday in Mallorca, where he expects little travel disruption. Laing concluded: “The German efficiency that we've all become accustomed to is no longer there.”
