Low: Hosting Euro 2024 is ‘exceptional’ for Germany

“A tournament like this is exceptional for our country,” Germany’s World Cup-winning manager Low told the German Football Association website.

“It’s a good step for the next few years, and everyone in the association can now plan ahead for it.

“Such a tournament can really motivate younger players as well.”

This is Turkey’s fourth defeat in the last five Euro bidding races and they had been hoping to mark the republic’s 100th anniversary in 2024 by staging their first major international football tournament.

But while Germany’s hotel stock, stadiums and transport infrastructure are all in place and of high quality, Turkey’s bid was marked down for needing to upgrade airports, railways, roads and stadiums, particularly at a time when their economy is struggling.

The country’s poor human-rights record was also flagged up by a UEFA evaluation report.

“I feel great anticipation and am mightily relieved,” said Germany’s 2014 World Cup-winning captain Philipp Lahm.

“We have excellent stadia, and fans who adore football.

“We’re very welcoming and we want to show that.

“We’ve done a lot of preparation, and we want to share this and get everyone involved.”

With German federation president Reinhard Grindel and the Turkish federation’s vice-chairman Servet Yardimci ineligible to vote and Denmark’s Lars-Christer Olsson unwell, the decision was made by the 17 remaining members of the UEFA ExCo.

Germany won by 12 votes to four with one vote invalid.

Berlin’s Olympic Stadium will host the final of the 24-team competition – the 17th edition of the tournament – with a total of 51 games scheduled for up to 32 days in June and July.

The nine other cities that will be used for games are Cologne, Dortmund, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg, Leipzig, Munich and Stuttgart.

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin said: “They were very strong bids from two big footballing countries but unfortunately only one could win.

“The procedure was transparent and the vote was democratic and I believe every democratic decision is the right one.

“I can only say I’m looking forward to going to the tournament in 2024.”

ga('create', 'UA-72310761-1', 'auto', {'name': 'pacontentapi'});
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'referrer', location.origin);
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension1', 'By Phil Blanche, Press Association Sport');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension2', 'c97f5168-ffa4-42fe-a5f3-933ae87bc8b8');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension3', 'paservice:sport,paservice:sport:football,paservice:sport:uk,paservice:sport:world');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension6', 'story');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension7', 'composite');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension8', null);
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension9', 'sport:football');
ga('pacontentapi.send', 'pageview', { 'location': location.href, 'page': (location.pathname + location.search + location.hash), 'title': 'Low: Hosting Euro 2024 is \u2018exceptional\u2019 for Germany'});