In El Pais today there’s an interesting article on Euro 2008 and European demographics. If we look at the teams participating in this tournament we can claim that probably this is the most representative tournament ever:
- 4 historic block of nations: the Latin world (Portugal, France, Italy and Spain)- 170 mill. people and GDP per capita at 20,000; the Germanic (Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Austria and Switzerland)- 130 mill and 30,000.; the Slavic (Czech Republic, Russia, Poland, Croatia)- 200 mill. and 10,000, and finally a post-Ottoman block (Turkey, Greece and Romania)- 110 mill and 10,000.
- In religious numbers: Catholicism goes first with 250 mill. followers, Orthodox Christians follow with over 100 mill.; Islam is next with roughly 75 mill. between Turks and Muslims across other European countries (mainly France and Germany) and finally the Protestants with 70 mill.
- Linguistically speaking: Russian dominates with 150 mill. speakers, German with 100 mill. (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), Turkish with 70 mill. comes third, then French with 65 mill. (France, Belgium and Switzerland); Italian follows with 60 mill. (Italy, Switzerland) and finally with roughly 40 mill. stand both Spanish and Polish.
- Finally the negative side of Euro 2008, the racial diversity on the pitch isn’t replicated on the stands, roughly 90% of fans attending the championship will be white.
Very Very interesting.