Will Glastonbury 2024 be showing the Euros football matches at the festival?

will-glastonbury-2024-be-showing-the-euros-football-matches-at-the-festival?
Will Glastonbury 2024 be showing the Euros football matches at the festival?

The organisers of Glastonbury Festival have confirmed that they will not be broadcasting the England or Scotland men’s football matches from the Last 16 stages of this summer’s European Football Championships, should either team qualify. In previous years, notable matches have been shown on big screens before the festival proper has begun, but with Last 16 matches potentially clashing with headline sets at this year’s festival, the decision has been made that, as in 2014 and 2016, matches will not be shown should either nation progress. The statement from the festival’s website said: “we would like to wish both Gareth Southgate and Steve Clarke’s sides all the best in Germany. And we hope we’ll all be able to watch them play Quarter Final matches in the days after this year’s Festival.”

There has been debate in recent years about whether football matches should be shown for festival-goers attending the summer event, which will feature headline sets from Dua Lipa, Coldplay, and SZA, as well as performances by the likes of Shania Twain, Little Simz and The National. However, Glastonbury organisers have generally declined to broadcast sporting events, with the exception of the English women’s football team’s World Cup match in 2019.

In 2014, Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis explained that the decision against airing sports events was related to the limited space available: “If it was on Sunday at nine o’clock in the morning, you could obviously put it on the main stage and it wouldn’t matter…But we don’t have a field big enough spare to put an enormous game on, potentially at that time when we are dealing with 177,000 people. We can’t just put it on at that time of day. It’s also… a music event!”

Glastonbury Festival is set to return next month following the pandemic shutdown, with additional announcements about the festival’s various areas and stages, including the launch of a new stage dedicated to South Asian talent, due in the coming weeks. The final batch of tickets for this year’s edition of the event sold out in just 20 minutes last month, and Eavis revealed that the festival had seen its “highest percentage of ticket balances paid ever.”

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