England’s travel plans have been criticised
England have been called out for choosing to fly to two of their Euro 2024 group games.
The Three Lions will be staying in east Germany however all of their groups games will take place in the west.
They begin their campaign against Serbia in Gelsenkirchen on Sunday, June 16 before facing Denmark in Frankfurt four days later and concluding the group stages against Slovenia in Cologne on Tuesday, June 25.
Gareth Southgate’s men will drive the 282km trip to their tournament opener before taking flights to Frankfurt and Cologne.
Germany were awarded the tournament on their pledge to make Euro 2024 as sustainable as possible. The government has spent £27m on green initiatives which include encouraging the 2.7m fans expected to attend not to drive by discounting train tickets and even reducing parking spaces at stadiums.
All of the groups were regionalised as well to ensure that travel would be kept to a minimum and travel by flight would reduce by 75 per cent.
While UEFA have actively encouraged this it wasn’t made compulsory and should England qualify for the knockout stages, it’s likely that they will have to fly again.
Despite there being no official rule stating you can’t fly England’s travel plans have come in for criticism.
13 NGOs across Europe have written to England and the other competing nations to encourage them not to fly and use alternative transport methods in a bid to help the environment.
Only Germany and Switzerland responded, promising not to take short-haul flights.
Travel Smart campaigner Erin Vera said: “UEFA and the hosts Germany have put a lot of effort into cutting transport emissions around the tournament, making it the greenest championships ever. This shows what can be done. Disappointingly the national teams are so far failing to lead by example. If teams choose to avoid taking the plane for journeys that could reasonably be taken by train or coach, they can drastically slash their emissions.”
Related links:
- Harry Maguire likely to miss Euros opener against Serbia
- Kieran Trippier names England player that’s impressed him the most
- England fans face £4000 fines for wearing fake shirts at the Euros
