The UEFA European Championship has started after it was delayed by 12 months. But the delayed competition will still be known as Euro 2020. There has been plenty of discussion over the name of the tournament as to why Euro 2020 not 2021.
The basic reason to keep the name as Euro 2020 and not Euro 2021 is as follows :
UEFA pushed back the tournament a year due to the complications of the Covid-19 pandemic but it has been confirmed by UEFA that it will still be called Euro 2020 and not Euro 2021. The reason behind this decision is that most marketing and promotional materials were already branded with ‘Euro 2020’ and they are unwilling for it to go to waste.
Changing the name of the football tournament would require a change to the branding and all the things said branding has been placed on. A global competition like Euro requires a lot of work and the work for the competition was already started long before it was postponed last year. A ton of merchandise is there around with “Euro 2020” plastered all over it. Swapping it to Euro 2021 means all that would need to change, and any official merchandise fans have already picked up will become redundant – or possibly a collector’s item depending on how much of it is already out there.
Numerous sponsors too have a stake—the reason Euro 2020 was not changed to Euro 2021. Rebranding would have crushed the sport’s economy. So it was unthinkable to cancel the tournament.
UEFA EURO is a global football tournament which takes place in every four years. This tournament is played among the European nations of the world. EURO 2020 was scheduled to take place in the year 2020 but due to worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, the tournament has been delayed and will take place in the present year 2021 from June 11, 2021 – June 24, 2021. To mark the 60th anniversary of the first ever tournament, the 16th edition of the flagship UEFA competition will be played with games being held across 12 different cities in Europe.
Another reason given by UEFA was that this decision allows UEFA to keep the original vision of the tournament, which was set to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the European Football Championship (1960–2020).
A statement from UEFA said, “It will furthermore serve as a reminder of how the whole football family came together to respond to the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, and of the difficult times that Europe, and the world, had to go through in 2020. This choice is in line with UEFA’s commitment to make UEFA EURO 2020 sustainable and not to generate additional amounts of waste. A lot of branded material had already been produced by the time of the tournament’s postponement. A name change for the event would have meant the destruction and reproduction of such items.”
UEFA EURO 2020 Groups
Group A: Italy, Switzerland, Turkey, Wales
Group B: Belgium, Russia, Denmark, Finland
Group C: Ukraine, Netherlands, Austria, North Macedonia
Group D: England, Croatia, Czech Republic, Scotland
Group E: Spain, Poland, Sweden, Slovakia
Group F: Germany, France, Portugal, Hungary
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