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 organisational disaster until the tournament director, the historic Mannschaft and Bayern Munich defender Philipp Lahm, arrived late for Ukraine-Slovakia in Düsseldorf last week. His train was running late. Nothing to surprise the long-suffering Germans, who are already used to one in three long-distance trains not keeping to their schedule (data from 2023), missing connections and travelling sitting in the aisles because they do not have an assigned seat.
The arrival of millions of fans from all over Europe for an event that moves crowds between 10 cities has exposed the shortcomings of the host country’s infrastructure. It’s not just the long-distance trains; local public transport has also failed, particularly in the Ruhr area in the west of the country, where most of the stadiums hosting the tournament’s 51 matches 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 dismantle the myth of German efficiency than years of news about its problems, which are largely the product of a lack of investment. What European fans are now witnessing in shock is the result of the German dogma of austerity. It is estimated that around 5,000 bridges urgently need to be renovated or rebuilt. Roads and highways show decades of lack of maintenance, which translates into works here and there to patch the firm and constant traffic jams that get on the nerves of drivers.
Now the state, limited by the debt brake, the debt ceiling set out in the German constitution, finds itself at a loss to find the money to bring the battered rail and road networks up to date. It is estimated that the railways alone need 88 billion euros to restore the good service they provided decades ago. It will take several more decades to solve the problem, warn public transport users’ 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 often make jokes comparing Deutsche Bahn [la Renfe alemana] with ÖBB [el operador austríaco]”, 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 did surprise me. “I didn’t imagine it in a city like Berlin.”
The perplexity that many fans have exhibited these days shows that the legend of reliable Germany endures. 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.
The 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 led to a formal complaint from the English Football Supporters Association (FSA), which denounces the “chaotic failures in transport” and the “negligent management” of the public exit. 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 have apologised and have assured that this will not happen again. “The situation in the Spain match was not so bad. The city increased the number of buses to reinforce the tram service,” explains Adrian Nunez, coordinator of Fans Embassy Spain, a volunteer organisation that supports Spanish fans within the Football Supporters Europe project. He himself was able to leave the stadium relatively quickly; it took him about 13 minutes. “Then the tram stopped and it was stopped for 15 minutes with the fans inside without air conditioning.” Some opened the doors and jumped out onto the road to stop buses, he says. His organisation, aware of the problems with the trains, has been recommending for weeks “not to rush the journey 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 fans’ discontent and criticism,” he told the newspaper. Bild Deutsche Bahn’s long-distance chief Michael Peterson, who admits that they are not offering “the quality they deserve”.
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