Chris Gunter blasts Euro 2020 as ‘joke set up of a tournament’
Chris Gunter has blasted Euro 2020’s “joke set up” which meant that Wales’ football fans couldn’t travel to watch the team.
Writing on Instagram, the defender criticised the tournament’s organisation which had seen a number of favourites play almost every game in their home stadia while Wales had to travel thousands of miles.
Wales also played their last game, and were defeated by Denmark, without home support after Welsh fans were refused entry to Amsterdam. Thousands of Danish fans were however allowed to travel.
“Written off before a bag of air was kicked, 3,000 miles from home,” he wrote.
“Every nation had fans wherever they went, apart from the 350 who broke government rules and bank accounts to be there, you and us deserved more from this joke set up of a tournament, but who said life was fair.
“We did not deserve that scoreline but who said life was fair. It hurts like mad, but to be hurting with some of my best mates and best muckas I’ve shared a changing room with for years on years makes it a little easier.
“And to share it with a nation who all feel the same makes it even easier.”
‘Chin up’
However, Chris Gunter called on the Wales football fans not to be disheartened by their exit from the tournament.
“Have a cry, but then smile that we were dining at the top table yet again,” he said. “And smile even more that we’ll be back, and we’ll be the ones with the full stadium belting out our anthem that we all deserve.
“This country is in safe hands with the squad we have believe me, I’d go to the trenches with every member of this team and staff. Be sad, but be proud, there’s only three million of us, but we are the fu****g lucky ones, and don’t you know it.
“Suck it up, keep your chin up, we’ll be alright, trust me on that. Genuinely thank you for all the support and love. See you soon.”
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The amount of travelling and home advantage for certain teams has definitely been a factor in this tournament, but Denmark’s best player almost died from a cardiac arrest only a fortnight ago. It’s not like everything’s fallen in place for them either.
Wales were comfortably beaten by a better team yesterday and making excuses isn’t a great look tbh. Focus on the WC qualifiers now.
Agree on focusing on wc qualifiers but that Wales travelled thousands of air miles during this tournament while Denmark travelled only a few hundred and Denmark were allowed thousands of fans in Amsterdam but Wales almost none are not excuses they are facts! Also do you really think zig zagging all over europe in the space of a few days doesnt affect athletes bodies? Thats without even mentioning yesterday’s eccentric officiating – the fourth official who somehow missed the foul on moore for the second denmark goal was the referee who gave ethan ampadu a extremely harsh straight red against… Read more »
I agree with all that but the point I’m making is that even if Wales hadn’t had to travel as much and the officiating had been better, they still would have lost yesterday.
Denmark were the better team. It’s gutting, but we should just accept it and move on. And the good news is that it’s unlikely they’ll ever have a tournament hosted in this way again.
You can’t possibly know that
The game started well for us. There was a moment when Dan James was almost clear but the ball just eluded him. A few milliseconds made the difference between us possibly taking the lead and the ball going into touch. 1-0 ahead means it could never have been a 4-0 defeat. Perhaps the tournament structure caused that to happen. We’ll never know. We live in this universe. Perhaps there’s another one where things were different but we are where we are. I hope we benefit from this experience. Reaching the last 16 was not a failure. I was born in… Read more »
Not possible to “know” that. How do you quantify the effect fatigue has on a team? How do you know how much refereeing competence and fairness affects matches. The refereeing associations do not publish measures of bias. Of course these can affect results. It doesn’t matter, no amount of harping on will change the results in this massively tilted tournament, but how good Denmark would have been without the advantages can never really be known. The simple fact is that if we want to participate in these tournaments we must accept that they are run by crooks who are interested… Read more »
Does anyone expect FIFA et al to NOT favour the ones who bung them the most money?
“Our”?
At worst WE are defending ourselves against Westminster’s culture war on us. We don’t want to destroy their “culture” we just want no part of it. We have our own and it is richer and better in every way. The real culture I mean. Not Daffodils and Davy Lamps and Tom Jones and that revolting Laver bread
Yes the tournament was poorly organised in this respect and very unfair so Wales did exceptional well to get out of their group. The final result was a shame but onwards and upwards.
He was also sympathetically reported in Finnish media, and with sports editorials hoping that ” we don’t see such a mess in the Euro finals again.” Chris Gunter has the right attitude, pick yourself up, dust yerself down, and start all over again, you (p)lucky little Cymru!
I gather this form of he competition was a one off and that next time it will be back to normal.