After Greece beat Kazakhstan during the last European Championship qualifying game on Thursday evening, Türkiye officially became the sole country that has qualified for Euro 2024, the team and football fans of which, need visas in order to attend the games set to be held this June in Germany.
With five goals scored by Greece, and none by Kazakhstan, the latter has officially been disqualified from Euro 2024, leaving Türkiye as the sole participating third country in the European Union’s list the nationals of which need a visa in order to enter the Schengen Zone.
Other third countries that have qualified are also Albania, England (UK), Scotland (UK ), and Serbia. None of the nationals of these countries need a visa to enter Germany or any of the other Schengen Area Member States.
While citizens of Serbia and Albania started travelling visa-free to the Schengen Zone following arrangements made between the governments of these two countries and the EU in 2009 and 2010, UK nationals were automatically granted visa-free access to the Schengen countries post-Brexit.
The EU/Schengen countries that have qualified for Euro 2024 so far are Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Switzerland, with Greece, Iceland and Poland still battling it out in another qualification round.
Turkish Footballers Without EU Citizenship or Residency Continuously Facing Visa Hurdles
While many of the Turkish national team players have either a second EU country citizenship or are residents of an EU country as they play for one of their teams, many others need visa arrangements in order to play in matches organised in the Schengen states.
For example, while players like Arda Güler who plays for Real Madrid, or Hakan Çalhanoğlu who plays for Inter Milan have their status regularised as EU sportsmen, and others like Ferdi Erenay Kadıoğlu who was born in the Netherlands have an EU citizenship, the case is not the same for many others.
Player Muhammed Kerem Aktürkoğlu who plays for Galatasaray, a Turkish club, continuously needs to secure his visa for games within the EU territory.
According to Besart Bajrami, founder of SchengenVisaInfo, undergoing such procedures time after time is enough of a hurdle for footballers of this level.
These footballers play for the national team, so visa denials or delays aren’t really a problem for them. Yet, taking the time to complete the procedures on time and collect the documents required is enough of a headache.
He further points out that other members of the national team face more often difficulties in this regard, than football players and coaches. And, of course, fans have it the most difficult.
In 2022, Türkiye became the largest source of Schengen visa applicants, with its nationals filing over 700,000 applications in 2022. This high number of applicants emptied over 62 million euros out of the pockets of Turkish nationals, a large share of which, 15 per cent, did not get their visas.
