Uniforia sounds like a funny word and it makes almost no sense when on its own. If you write it at the bottom of a soccer ball things get a little different. It is the name of the official match ball for the Euro 2020. Foria for “Euphoria” and Uni for “Unity”. So, why does the name of a funny-looking soccer ball matter? Why is there a whole paragraph about it? Because it is the concept that COVID-19 has taken away from us.
The Rise
The premise was as innovative as it was exciting. This year’s European soccer championship was set to tour the continent to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the tournament. Furthermore, the idea was to serve as a trial run to eliminate fixed host countries thus, embracing the unity of Europe through the power of soccer. Sadly, this can be no more as the Euro 2020 was postponed until 2021 due to the Coronavirus. This poses a few problems.
The Fall
The current health crisis has put on hold one of the greatest concepts in sports. The idea itself is simple. Sharing hosts has been done before. The Korea-Japan 2002 World Cup is the best example of this. The European tournament is well-known for that as the 2008 edition was held in Austria and Switzerland while the following championship, 2012, was hosted by Poland and Ukraine. Nonetheless, a dozen cities were unheard of, each of them with a stadium of their own.
The enlarged number of venues was tied to a strong sense of unity that can be seen in the Uniforia ball itself as each of the colors on it represent a host country. This could very well turn into just an eggshell even after the championship has been postponed for next year.
Going ahead with playing in different countries is a risky move. This requires players, staff, and fans to travel to different countries as early as in the group stage. While the travel distances won’t be all that long, they include getting into countries that have been devastated by this health crisis such as France, Italy and Spain.
This Might Not Work Out
The possibility of resuming the scheduled plans of a continent-wide tournament for an entire month sounds wonderful, however, it is a bit of a fairy-tale given the global crisis we’re supposed to overcome by then. Even if we do, things will be quite sensible for good reasons. Border controls will be stricter and health checks will be more rigorous than Howard Webb. A VAR mistake will be the least of our worries.
Soccer doesn’t have much to be excited about right now. No leagues, no Champions League, and of course, no Euro. The latter one might not happen as we hoped for after all. Uniforia might be gone forever.