According to official regulations, there are also too few places for wheelchair users in the European Championship stadium in Düsseldorf.
Photo: imago/Moritz Müller
It still takes just under 14 weeks until the men’s European Football Championship. After 36 years, the tournament is returning to Germany for the first time this summer. But fans in wheelchairs often find it difficult to get one of the limited accessible seats at sporting events. In this context, interest groups point out that the need for wheelchair spaces in German football stadiums is currently not being met. UEFA, on the other hand, repeatedly emphasizes the importance of diversity and inclusion in its strategy papers. How does that fit together?
According to figures from the federal government in its response to a small question from Left MP André Hahn, the required number of wheelchair spaces are not available in any of the ten European Championship stadiums. These are actually clearly regulated in the so-called Model Meeting Place Ordinance: In stadiums with up to 5,000 seats, one percent of this capacity must be reserved for wheelchair users; for larger stadiums it is 0.5 percent. According to Hahn, the fact that this is not met at any of the venues is a disgrace. “We finally need a Golden Plan for sports facilities in order to noticeably advance the creation of accessibility,” the sports policy spokesman for his party uses the opportunity to bring one of his favorite demands into play again.
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At UEFA’s request, around 500 additional wheelchair spaces will be available during the European Championship. However, according to the President of the German Disabled Sports Association, this is not enough. “This is just a symbolic sign, but it does not cover the actual need,” said Friedhelm Julius Beucher “nd.” Even with the newly created places, the numbers stated in the regulation have not yet been reached.
There is also officially a space deficit in the Berlin Olympic Stadium. According to the federal government, the number of wheelchair spaces will be increased to 202 for the European Championships, which still leaves a large gap to the 400 spaces required in the assembly venue regulations. The operators of the Olympic Stadium defend these figures by saying that the building’s listed status and limited financial resources no longer allow. Furthermore, the available spaces “represent the real needs of the interest groups,” which were determined, among other things, in collaboration with fan representatives from Hertha BSC. When asked by nd, the club confirmed the statement that, at least in Berlin itself, “a maximum capacity of 90 seats was recorded for the top games.”
However, it is currently completely unclear whether demand will increase for the EM. In response to nd’s request, UEFA wrote that tickets for wheelchair users were still available for all European Championship games. In the official Sales portal However, there are currently no tickets available. A third application phase is scheduled to start this spring. So the hope for the coveted seats for football fans in wheelchairs is not yet completely extinguished.
Another reason for the slow expansion: the lack of profitability. By creating wheelchair spaces, several hundred other spaces will be eliminated without replacement. These are financial losses that many organizers do not want to bear. After all, the places in Berlin added for the 2024 European Championship will remain in place after the tournament. The measure is not a given, because in many other arenas the temporary wheelchair spaces created are to be dismantled after the European Championships. »I think that’s crazy. That’s almost cynical,” said the Federal Government Commissioner for the Affairs of People with Disabilities, Jürgen Dusel, to ARD’s “Sportschau”. »Saying we’re doing this now because we’re told so from the outside – and then we’ll rebuild again. That’s not sustainable either, it’s not professional.”
On the other hand, even the federal government is not stepping on the accelerator here: “It should be noted that the model meeting place regulation is not a binding legal rule, but a model for the meeting place regulations of the states, which are also responsible for enforcing their regulations.” So accessibility is Country matter.
And yet – in the field of sport there is still a lot of room for improvement when it comes to inclusion. According to the German Disabled Sports Association, 90 percent of all German sports facilities are not barrier-free. According to the association, it is not only the federal and state governments that are obliged to eliminate this deficit. A greater social understanding of people with disabilities must also be created so that there can finally be equal opportunities for everyone. The European Championship could have set an example for this, as it was also intended to be a driver for modernizing the infrastructure of German stadiums. However, in the area of accessibility it is still faltering.
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