the organization of the women’s Euro-2025 attributed to Switzerland, France failed
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Switzerland will organize the European Women’s Football Championship in 2025, a first for the Swiss nation which succeeds England. France’s candidacy was not selected, perhaps weighed down by the disaster of the Champions League final at the Stade de France in May 2022, or even by the crisis at the French Federation.
Preferred to France, Poland and a quartet of Nordic nations (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden), Switzerland succeeds England, host and winner of the European Championship in 2022.
Sixteen nations will take part in the competition which will be scheduled for June and July 2025 in Basel, Bern, Geneva, Zurich, St. Gallen, Sion, Lucerne and Thun, according to a press release from the Swiss federation.
The Swiss Football Association (ASF) has been chosen to host a major football competition for the second time after the men’s Euro-2008, co-organized with Austria.
It has never hosted a European Women’s Championship on its soil, unlike Norway (1987, 1997 with Sweden), Denmark (1991), Finland (2009) and Sweden (2013).
Psychodrama among the Blues
While the four Nordic countries, where women’s football is very popular, were the favourites, Switzerland has undoubtedly benefited from its central place on the continent.
“Our tournament should be a four-week celebration for all of Switzerland and, thanks to our location in the heart of Europe, for the surrounding countries”, noted Marion Daube, director of women’s football at the ASF and responsible for the candidacy project, in the press release.
France, which organized the 2019 Women’s World Cup, may have paid for the fiasco of the Champions League final at the Stade de France in May 2022, or the crisis at the French Federation, which resulted in the resignation of the President Noël Le Graët and his replacement by the interim Philippe Diallo. The psychodrama among the Blues with the ousting of coach Corinne Deacon, publicly let go by several executive players, also caused a stir.
With AFP
