Frivolity

Three reasons NOT to watch Euro 2016

Euro 2016 logo - kettlemag, Mathew Drew
Written by matdrew9

The European Championships (of football) start tomorrow in France and everywhere you turn you can find somebody talking about it. They are all over-eager and ill-prepared for inevitable failure. With all this overdriven hype in mind, let me take you through three reasons I will NOT be watching the Euros:

1) Nobody really likes football, right?

Around 100 million people watched England’s last Euros game in 2012 when they lost to Italy on penalties in the quarter-finals. That’s a lot of people and they surely cannot all really claim to like football? Really? With all those imposters around it would be easy to get drawn in and the next thing you know you will also be saying you actually like Justin Bieber’s new material.

That many people focussing on one match can also spell danger. Who is watching the banks, the children, the Queen for goodness sake?! I would much prefer a more intimate, safer atmosphere anyway such as when 13.6 million people watched Prince William getting married.  Much better. Then you might be able to hear yourself think.

2) Football is boring.

I know that people talk all about Lionel Messi as being the best thing since sliced bread. Actually they would probably say one of his passes could slice bread itself. But guess what? He is from Argentina…outside Europe. So what is there really to watch? The other much acclaimed player, Cristiano Ronaldo, is an old-timer now. He has not won the Ballon d’Or for, like, over a year now. Come on.

3) We might not even be in Europe by the end of the tournament.

With the EU referendum looming on 23rd June, should things go a certain way then none of the football teams from the United Kingdom would even be eligible to win right? Bloody Brussels. That means Rooney, Vardy, Kane and co will all be sent packing through no-doubt rigorous border checks back to where they came from, unable to work and move freely through France. They would be joined by Gareth Wales and Northern Ireland too, but at least they might bond on the ferry. Still no Scotland though…that could go badly.

But if you absolutely must tune in to watch this big cahoot…

then you can find coverage of every match on the BBC and ITV throughout the tournament, which runs from 10th June to 10th July. England and Wales start their campaigns against Russia and Slovakia on 11th July, while Northern Ireland kick off against Poland one day later.