Euro 2024 in Germany is UEFA's 1st step to raise pandemic-hit cash reserves above $550 million

abcnews.go.com:

UEFA has a two-step financial mission to refill its pandemic-hit cash reserves

GENEVA — UEFA’s two-step financial plan to refill its pandemic-hit cash reserves starts with a men’s 2024 European Championship held in the home of the continent’s largest economy.

Revenue of about 2.5 billion euros ($2.7 billion) is expected from broadcast and sponsor deals, and sales of tickets, hospitality packages and licensing from staging a 51-game tournament in Germany that begins on June 14 in Munich and ends July 14 with the championship match in Berlin.

Europe's governing soccer body UEFA forecast in April that close to half of its Euro 2024 income, about 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion), will be profit to fund much of its work and development grants for the next four years and top up its reserves.

The costs of organizing the tournament include hundreds of million of euros (dollars) in prize money for the 24 teams and daily-rate payments to clubs whose players are selected.

It was certainly Germany’s time to host UEFA’s marquee event — 36 years after West Germany hosted just an eight-team Euro ’88 one year before the Berlin Wall came down — and when its executive committee members voted in September 2018 to pick the country over Turkey, a global health emergency was not on their minds.

The legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, was very much in UEFA thinking when a long-term plan to send Euro 2028 to be hosted in the UK and Ireland was finally confirmed in an uncontested vote last October.

A tournament anchored in England with modern stadiums generating huge matchday revenues was a safe choice for UEFA eyeing its bottom line after the high-maintenance, low-revenue Euro 2020 that was played one year late in half-empty venues