Keir RADNEDGE

An historic Euros beckons

Each succeeding European Championship writes a new page in football history. Usually it’s the achievement of an outstanding player or team; maybe even a dramatic match. But Euro 2020, delayed for a year, is something else entirely: history without a ball even being kicked.

Football’s European Championship stands at No.3 in terms of the world’s great sporting events. The World Cup and Olympic Games are on a faraway distant plane through their status as popular, social, political and cultural phenomena which transcend sport itself. Rugby union lays its own claim to slot No.3 in terms of “world” competition, but it cannot compete with the Euros in terms of global attraction: 851 million TV viewers for its own World Cup in 2019 compared with two billion for Euro 2016.

The Euros