After four failed bids in the recent past, Turkey is finally set to be awarded the hosting rights for the UEFA EURO 2032 international football tournament.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long dreamt of hosting one of the world’s most prestigious sporting events.
Now he is set to finally get the chance, despite the country being mired in an economic crisis with the annual inflation rate hovering near 60 percent.
On Tuesday, UEFA’s executive committee meets to announce the hosts for the 2028 and 2032 European Championships.
Turkey withdrew its bid to host in 2028 in order to focus all its efforts on a united proposal with Italy to stage the tournament four years later.
Erdogan is not feigning an interest in what is Turkey’s most popular sport — in his younger years he played at a semi-professional level and he is an avowed supporter of Fenerbahce, the Istanbul giants who are one of the country’s biggest clubs.
Winning the right to host the biggest sporting event in Europe would be one of the crowning moments of his time in power.
It would also be highly symbolic in political terms.
“In modern times, sport has always been perceived as a means for Turkey to forge its own legitimacy and compete equally with the rest of the western world,” says Daghan Irak, a lecturer in media communication at the University of Huddersfield in England.
“Erdogan has not diverted from that historic strategy.”
AFP