Hungary to host UEFA football games but not the 2032 Olympics?

Hungary has been working towards becoming a popular sports destination. Sadly, the country still needs some alterations to organise the biggest sporting event out there, the Summer Olympic Games.

One thing is for sure, though, Budapest will be among those 12 cities which are to host certain games of this year’s UEFA European Championship. The tournament was postponed last year due to the pandemic but got the green light

to be organised this summer, between June 11 and July 11.

The Hungarian capital’s participation can be considered a solid fact, even though Aleksander Ceferin, the President of UEFA, recently said that

only those cities can be organisers which can guarantee a certain number of fans in the stadiums.

As Gergely Gulyás, the Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office, said back in March, only those vaccinated can enter the stadiums and attend games. Since the vaccination program in Hungary is going very well, with over 2.5 million jabs administered, very soon, all those wishing to attend a game will be able to do so. According to government plans, by the end of May, everyone who registered for the vaccine will be able to receive it, added the Minister.

• Hungary has started the gradual reopening of the country

Nevertheless, if the virus causes unforeseen complications in the upcoming days or weeks, host cities have until 28 April to modify their plans and models on how to organise the matches safely, writes Origo.hu. For now, all host cities’ plans were considered positive and were accepted. However, UEFA did not make it public with how big of an audience the cities counted. Martin Kallen, the Operational Chief of UEFA, only said that there were great differences in the size of the audience planned by the cities.

According to plans, Puskás Stadium would give place to three matches at the group stage (two of Hungary and one between France and Portugal) and to one in the round of 16.

When it comes to the 2032 Summer Olympics, for the organisation of which Hungary was a candidate, unfortunately, the country has to give up its hopes this time.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that it considers Brisbane the perfect place to organise a complex event of such magnitude.

Until now, all cities had 7 years to prepare for the games and the “winner” used to be announced after a 2-year-long period of application during which contestants had to fulfil certain criteria related to the organisational process. This time, the Committee decided to take a different path and, already back in February, Brisbane was named the most likely candidate, then in March, the Committee announced that the city complied with all criteria.

The organiser city has never been revealed this early. The IOC argued that this way, the rest of the contestants will save time and money spent on the preparation of the plans.

Germany has already announced that in the case that Brisbane is the 2032 Olympic Games’ organiser, the country will automatically prepare as a candidate for the next games 4 years later. According to a source of Népszava.hu,

the Hungarian Olympic Committee might consider doing the same, concentrating on the 2036 Olympic Games.

However, the toughest part when it comes to Hungary organising an international event of such magnitude is not to agree on all details and criteria with the IOC but to convince the vast majority of Hungarians that this event would very much be beneficial for the whole country.  

Read alsoN.Korea to skip Olympic Games over Covid-19 fears

Source: origo.hu, Népszava.hu