The ‘troika of security’: merging retrospective and futuristic ‘risk’ and ‘security’ assessments before Euro 2020
ABSTRACT Rooted in the UEFA Men’s Euro 2020 as a case study, this article examines the coalescence of futuristic and retrospective assessments in the governance and construction of security in the context of sport mega-events (SMEs). SMEs require large-scale security efforts to ensure safety for event tourists and spectators and scholars have suggested that SME security governance and risk assessments post-9/11, shaped by wider processes, have become increasingly precautionary, future-oriented and guided by the question ‘what if?’. Concurrently, scholars also note how SME security is based on the reproduction of previously tested practices and models. Building on these existing insights, this article locates these distinctive processes within the under-researched context of Euro 2020’s pre-planning and introduces a concept called the ‘troika of security’, which captures precautionary and reproduction-based mechanisms that assist security constructions and governance.