England stars face a SIX-HOUR coach trip for their Euro 2024 game against Denmark this summer, under new green rules cutting down on football’s love for short flights
- UEFA is asking teams to avoid air travel where possible during Euro 2024
- England will follow the directive despite traveling 300 kilometers for their second match
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The England players face a six-hour coach journey to reach their European Championship group match against Denmark this summer due to UEFA sustainability rules.
UEFA has committed to making the summer tournament in Germany the greenest ever and is spending £25 million on a range of sustainability measures, including asking teams to avoid air travel where possible.
UEFA guidance shows that it is reasonable to expect parties to make journeys of around three hours by road or rail to reduce emissions, although this has not been made mandatory.
Mail Sport has learned that following discussions with manager Gareth Southgate, the FA has decided to follow UEFA guidelines for England’s second match in Group C against Denmark in Frankfurt, a 300km journey from their training camp in the Golfrestort Weimarer Land near Leipzig.
England’s two other group matches, in Gelsenkirchen and Cologne, against Serbia and Slovenia respectively, are over four hours from their base camp by road, so bus travel is considered impractical.
England face a six-hour bus journey for their second Euro 2024 match against Denmark
Gareth Southgate’s side will make the trip as part of a directive reducing the number of short flights
England is about to make a 290 kilometer trip from the Weimarer Land Golf Resort training base
However, a three-hour bus journey is still unusual for top players, many of whom are used to taking flights of several minutes to travel to matches with their clubs.
Arsenal came under strong criticism from environmentalists for making a fourteen-minute flight to Norwich for a Premier League match a few years ago, while other clubs regularly fly short distances, with Manchester United, for example, traveling by plane to Leicester City.
The FA’s decision to implement a bus trip will increase the players’ travel time as the nearest airport to their hotel is just 30 miles away in Erfurt-Weimar, from where it is a 31-minute flight to Frankfurt.
As a result, the players will be relatively late in the evening given Southgate’s preference to return to base camp immediately after matches so they can recover properly the next day, although the 6pm kick-off will allow them should expect to be back at headquarters between midnight and 1 a.m. .
The FA and other competing nations have until February 24 to submit their travel plans to UEFA. England’s travel plans for the knockout stages are yet to be finalized, although given the distances it is unlikely any other coach trips will take place.
The only other venue within driving distance of the English hotel is the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, where the final will take place, and even that is further than UEFA’s three-hour guidelines.