Since this week, Klaus Littmann's temporary art installation ‘Bridge Kick’ on the Mittlere Brücke has been drawing attention to the upcoming major sporting event. Next Wednesday, the Swiss women's team will kick off against Norway at St. Jakob-Park, officially opening the UEFA Women's Euro 2025. Basel is the main venue for the opening and final matches and is offering residents and visitors a varied summer programme. 

The fan zones on Barfüsserplatz and Messeplatz will feature public viewing, fan walks, concerts and cinema evenings, a ball parcourse and games and activities for children, including a ten-metre-high giant slide. The Stadtcasino is part of the fan zone on Barfüsserplatz and offers listening, reading and gaming stations. Right next door, the Historical Museum is presenting a trophy exhibition. The soccer court is returning to Messeplatz with additional stands, and a supervised football programme open to all will take place daily. Host city Basel is expecting five sold-out matches and up to half a million visitors to the fan zones at Barfüsserplatz and Messeplatz.

Official opening ceremony on 1 July from 6 p.m.

To mark the opening of the two fan zones on Barfüsserplatz and Messeplatz on 1 July, an opening ceremony will take place on Barfüsserplatz at 6 p.m. This programme will be broadcast live to Messeplatz and there will also be several live links to Kleinbasel during the evening.

Presenter Katja Reichenstein will guide the audience through the programme and welcome State Councillor Mustafa Atici and State Councillor Esther Keller, Tournament Director Doris Keller and UEFA Director of Women's Football Nadine Kessler, as well as Peter Knäbel, President-elect of the Swiss Football Association, and Basel Project Manager Sabine Horvath to the stage during the course of the evening. The Basel band Moonpools will provide the musical prelude with a mix of shoegaze, indie rock and dream pop. The grand finale will be a concert by Anna Rossinelli & Friends: the local heroine will be joined on stage by Nicole Bernegger, AMOA, Emilia Anastazja and Julia, strong female voices from her hometown.

Additional public viewing capacity and fan march before the opening match

On 2 July, the first day of the tournament, the fan zones will open at 11 a.m. It is almost impossible to predict how many people will gather in the fan zones to watch the Swiss women's opening match on screen. To create additional capacity, a mobile LED wall will be installed on Theaterplatz on 2 July. ‘Due to the good weather forecast for the opening match, we want to make full use of the available space for public viewing,’ says Sabine Horvath, overall project manager for Host City Basel, explaining the decision to include Theaterplatz.

Around three hours before kick-off at St. Jakob-Park, fans of the teams involved will gather to march together towards the stadium. These fan marches are an integral part of the UEFA Women’s Euro experience, with fan delegations from the opposing teams getting in the mood for the game. Fans are asked to start heading towards Grossbasel at 5.30 p.m. The fan march will then start at 6 p.m. on Münsterplatz. Weather permitting, an extraordinary eye-catcher will accompany the fans at the opening and final matches: the cultural ambassador of the host city of Basel, Jean Tinguely's mobile sculpture from the Tinguely Museum. The route leads along Gellertstrasse through the St. Alban quarter and along St. Jakobsstrasse to the stadium.

The other matches at St. Jakob-Park will take place on 8 July at 6 p.m. (Germany vs. Denmark), on 13 July at 9 p.m. (Netherlands vs. France), on 19 July at 9 p.m. (quarter-final) and on 28 July at 6 p.m. (final).