Turkiye football team players and Turkish fans will require visas to attend matches of the Euro 2024 that will be held this June in Germany where they will face Portugal and the Czech Republic in Group F.
Vincenzo Montella’s side is one of the participating countries in the Euros that does not have the European Union’s (EU) right to free movement and it is also not a member of the EU – termed a ‘third country’ in the list.
Other third countries that will participate in the Euros are Albania, England, Scotland, and Serbia but none of the nationals of these countries need a visa to enter Germany or any of the other Schengen Zone.
Post Brexit, the countries within the United Kingdom such as Scotland and England were granted visa-free movement automatically by the EU while Albania and Serbia secured visa-free movement after their respective governments arranged with the European Union back in 2010.
Muhammed Kerem Akturkoglu is a Turkish player who plays for the Turkish club Galatasaray and constantly needs to apply for his visa to play in countries from the Schengen Zone.
Albeit players like Hakan Calhanoglu, who plays for Inter Milan football club in Italy, and Arda Guler, who represents Real Madrid in Spain, are registered as EU players and do not require visas to enter a country like Germany.
The Schengen zone 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.
Despite this, the national team players and coaches do get their visas on time but the technical staff and people such as team doctors suffer a lot because of this issue.
Fans bear the brunt of this visa policy by the European Union the most and face a lot of difficulty in terms of traveling to the EU countries.
