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Notice something odd about the attached map? It shows the revised list of venues for hosting football’s European Nations’ Cup to be held in France in 2016.

It was announced this week that the cities of Toulouse and Saint Etienne were back in the mix. Michel Platini, president of Europe’s football governing body UEFA and former captain of the French national team said that it was unfair to discard Toulouse and Saint-Etienne, “who represent the heritage of French football”. M.Platini also went on to say: "the impact of popular tourism on the economy would be much better with 11 host cities: it is a sensible decision, of general interest to the host country."

Football fans in Brittany, Pays de la Loire and Normandy wouldn’t necessarily disagree with that last sentiment but what remains beyond the comprehension of football followers in Le Grand Ouest of France, that huge amorphous area north and west of a line from la Rochelle to Le Havre is why these three regions have been given a body swerve so far as Euro 2016 is concerned.

A premier international event like Euro 2016, where not inconsiderable sums of taxpayers’ cash will be expended in updating, and in some cases, building brand new stadia should, as M.Platini highlighted benefit tourism and the economy. With the best will in the world, it is difficult to imagine that football fans from all over Europe will be spending much of their hard earned cash in Brittany, Normandy or Pays de la Loire when the nearest venues are in Paris (2) and Bordeaux.

Yes, the selection process for host venues is complicated and isn’t carried out in an afternoon, but since there still remain 5 years before the first match of Euro 2016 kicks off, surely it was not too late to make an attempt at correcting this glaring deficiency in the geographical spread of host cities.

With Euro 2016 being expanded from 16 to 24 finalists and the resultant increase in the number of matches from 31 to 51, there can be no argument that having 11 host venues instead of 9 as was projected makes sense. What is hard to comprehend is leaving out of this mix major centres of population in the West of France – Le Havre, Rouen, Rennes, Tours, Angers, Nantes – not one of them will feature in Euro 2016. Yet, if you happen to live in the industrial north east, there are two within a short distance of each other Lille and Lens, whilst down in the Massif Central, European fans will find themselves playing chassé-croisé between Lyon and Saint Etienne – they’ll almost be able to hear each other singing in the two stadia!

Granted, some of the north western cities listed might not have much of a footballing tradition. Yes, some fans in the North West might be huffed if a city other than their own were chosen but to leave out a whole sector of France beggars belief.

Fans of Stade Rennais might not be entirely enthused if, for example, Beaujoire in Nantes (or a brand new stadia) were chosen but on the whole it would make perfect sense, both geographically, for the economy and politically if Rennes had featured in this particular starting eleven. I suspect that football fans in the west of France would rather have had at least one venue in their regions than none at all. 

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