German railway DB took on too much with Euro 2024, says minister

German railway provider Deutsche Bahn bit off more than it could chew with the Euro 2024 football championship, Transport Minister Volker Wissing said on Friday.

Fans and teams alike have been late to matches due to railway delays. Reporters from around the globe covering the competition have written stories about the delays.

Shortly after the tournament started, a headline in the New York Times read: "In Germany, a tournament runs smoothly, but the trains do not."

Wissing, in remarks to the Sunday newspaper Welt am Sonntag published on Friday, acknowledged the problem.

"What has happened to some of the fans is not in line with Germany's standards and not the standards I have for our transport infrastructure," he said

"By announcing that 10,000 additional train seats would be made available every day during the European Championships, DB overreached," Wissing asserted.

The intention behind this offer was certainly good, Wissing added, noting that the nation's rail network could not cope with this additional capacity in its current state.

The frequent heavy rainfall in the first weeks of the tournament made the situation even worse. "The network is not designed for such extreme weather conditions," Wissing said.

Deutsche Bahn Infrastructure Director Berthold Huber defended the rail provider. "We really did everything we could. We postponed and cancelled all construction sites that were not necessary in order to have at least as little impact on the infrastructure as possible," he said.