Euro 2020 Held during the COVID-19 Period: Budapest Residents’ Perceptions

Balázs Polcsik (), Tamás Laczkó and Szilvia Perényi ()
Additional contact information
Balázs Polcsik: Doctoral School of Sports Science, Hungarian University of Sports Science, 1123 Budapest, Hungary
Tamás Laczkó: Department of Health Promotion and Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pécs, 7621 Pécs, Hungary
Szilvia Perényi: Department of Sports Management, Hungarian University of Sports Science, 1123 Budapest, Hungary

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 18, 1-18

Abstract: Organising the 2020 European Football Championship was fraught with the uncertainties of the pandemic period. Budapest hosted its four allocated matches during the postponed event without stadium capacity restrictions. Drawing on both social exchange theory (SET) and social representation theory (SRT), the study aimed to investigate how the level of fear of COVID-19 before the start of Euro 2020 influenced the perception of the tournament among residents of Budapest. Data were collected by telephone interview during the five days preceding the event based on a representative sample of Budapest residents (n = 1003, adult population aged 18 years and over), accounting for gender, age and place of residence. Cluster analysis identified three groups of residents based on fear of coronavirus: concerned, neutral and unconcerned. Although our study only investigated the opinions of residents in one host city, the relevance of the research appears compelling in that it highlights the crucial role of COVID-19 in influencing responses to the expected impact of Euro 2020. Examining the views of local residents and understanding the factors that influence their opinions play a key role in more successful and sustainable delivery of sporting events.

Keywords: pre-event perspective; UEFA Euro 2020; COVID-19; residents’ perceptions; Budapest (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/18/11601/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/18/11601/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:18:p:11601-:d:915963

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().