Foreign fans had been complaining on social media for days, sometimes more surprised than angry: How can it be that German trains are late or cancelled in the middle of the Euros? Why is the internet connection so bad? Why can’t you pay by card in restaurants in big cities?, was what people in the UK, Scotland, France and so on wrote on social media accounts.
But in Germany they were not fully aware of the organizational disaster until the tournament director, the historic defender of the Mannschaft and Bayern Munich, Philipp Lahm, arrived late for Ukraine-Slovakia in Düsseldorf last week. His train was late. Nothing that surprises the long-suffering Germans, already accustomed to one in three long-distance trains not respecting their schedule (data from 2023), to missing connections and traveling sitting in the aisles as they do not have an assigned seat.
The arrival of millions of fans from all over Europe to an event that moves crowds between 10 cities has brought to light the deficiencies in the host country’s infrastructure. It’s not just long-distance trains; Local public transportation has also failed, especially in the Ruhr basin, in the west of the country, where most of the stadiums hosting the 51 matches of the tournament are concentrated. Germany’s reputation as a reliable, efficient and punctual country has suffered in a matter of days, perhaps forever.
The European Championship has done more to dispel the myth of German efficiency than years of news about its problems, which are largely the result of a lack of investment. What European fans are now seeing with stupefaction is the result of the German dogma of austerity. An estimated 5,000 bridges are in urgent need of renovation or reconstruction. Roads and motorways are showing signs of decades of lack of maintenance, with work here and there to patch up the road surface and constant traffic jams that make drivers nervous.
Now the State, limited by the debt brake, the debt limit set out in the German Constitution, finds that it does not know where to get the money to update the battered rail and road networks. It is estimated that the railways alone need 88 billion euros to recover the good service they provided decades ago. It will take several more decades to solve the problem, warn public transport user associations.
The country is also in the midst of digital transformation. Germany is behind Europe in fiber optic penetration. Connections are slow and unreliable. This is also why the poor quality of Wi-Fi appears in conversations when foreign fans are asked about the inconveniences they are encountering. “We know the delays of German trains; “In Austria we usually make jokes comparing Deutsche Bahn (the German Renfe) with ÖBB (the Austrian operator),” said Michael Gross, who arrived from Linz to spend several days at a friend’s house, this Thursday in the fan zone at the Brandenburg Gate. : “The slow internet has surprised me. “I didn’t imagine it in a city like Berlin.”
The bewilderment displayed by many fans these days shows that the legend of reliable Germany lives on. Globally influential media such as The New York Times They have had to debunk the stereotypes that still circulate around the world. In Germany, links have gone viral with English reporters warning fans to bring cash to eat and drink in Gelsenkirchen because, surprise, most bars and restaurants do not accept cards.
Bad wifi and the cash only (cash only) may be minor inconveniences, anecdotes to tell on return as a joke, but the problems with transport do worry the authorities because security has been compromised. Just look at the images of the crowds at the Veltins Arena tram station after the England-Serbia game on June 16 in Gelsenkirchen.
To evacuate a stadium with 60,000 spectators, there were short trams (with three cars, although the platform has capacity for twice as many) that passed every 15 minutes. Lack of foresight in the country where its citizens contract vacations from one year to the next and set coffee dates for a month in advance? The incident has caused the formal complaint from the Football Supporters Association (FSA) English, which denounces the “chaotic failures in transportation” and the “negligent management” of public departures. The FSA says it is “dismayed” by what the fans had to experience, many of whom waited up to three hours in the morning to be able to leave the state trapped on a narrow bridge over the station.
The local authorities apologized and assured that it would not happen again. “In the Spain match the situation was not so bad. The city expanded the number of buses to reinforce the tram service,” explains Adrián Núñez, coordinator of the Fans Embassy Spaina volunteer organization that supports the Spanish fans within the Football Supporters Europe projectHe himself was able to leave the stadium relatively quickly, taking about 13 minutes. “Then the tram stopped and stood there for 15 minutes with the fans inside without air conditioning.” Some people opened the doors and jumped out onto the road to flag down buses, he says. His organisation, aware of the problems with the trains, has been recommending for weeks “not to rush journeys if there are connections, for example, to catch a flight.”
“We are talking to Deutsche Bahn; “They are going to continue doing everything possible to ensure that people get from A to B on time,” said Lahm after experiencing firsthand the terrible service of German trains. “This is not a specific problem in the tournament. It should have been solved much sooner,” he lamented, referring to the decades of underfunding of infrastructure. At least the company is aware: “We understand the discontent and criticism of the fans,” he stated. to the newspaper Image Deutsche Bahn’s long-distance chief Michael Peterson, who admits that they are not offering “the quality they deserve”.
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