In a press release confirming Birmingham and Budapest as the two bidders for the 2026 European Championships, Christian Milz, the European Athletics chief executive, added: "European Athletics would also like to confirm, following a recent European Athletics Council decision, that the 2026 European Athletics Championships will be organised as a stand-alone event like that in Rome in two years’ time."

A European Championships Management spokesperson told insidethegames: "Up to now, European Athletics has been very clear in its communications to ECM that they do not want to be part of the event in 2026.

‘’While we respect the decision of European Athletics, we are surprised about the communication of its strategic conclusions just under two months before what promises to be an incredible second edition of the multi-sport European Championships in Munich."

In his statement, Milz added: “The involvement and cooperation with the host member federation is especially important for European Athletics at our major events and we believe being independent, as the European Athletics Championships were until 2016, will strengthen this relationship as well as help create a special athletics experience for the competitors, athletics fans, TV and other media and every other stakeholder in our sport, such as commercial partners, and provide enhanced international visibility and profile.”

The multi-sport European Championships made their debut in 2018, when Berlin hosted the athletics events, and are being held every four years, with the athletics programme in Munich scheduled to take place from August 15 until 21 as part of an event involving beach volleyball, canoe sprint, BMX freestyle and road cycling, artistic gymnastics, rowing, sports climbing, table tennis and triathlon.

Speaking to FrancsJeux, European Athletics vice-president Jean Gracia explained the shift in the position with regard to the European Championships.

"The concept was born in the years 2015/2016," he told the website.

"Eurovision had forced our hand a little by highlighting the interest of synchronising the different sports.

“It worked in 2018 because all the other sports were in Glasgow, while we were alone in Berlin.

“In Munich, this year, everyone will be gathered in the same place.

“But that created problems.

“Communication is not the same for all sports, all of this has to be coordinated.

"And Eurovision did not put the same pressure.

"For the 2026 edition, European Athletics has decided to no longer participate in a common edition of the European Championships.

"We will regain our independence.

"We will only try to coordinate our schedules with the other disciplines.

"Swimming, which was already not at Munich 2022, made the same decision."

Asked if there were not benefits to the multi-sport model, Gracia admitted that European Athletics did not believe the model worked for them. 

“It turned out that the problems outnumbered the benefits," he told FrancsJeux

“But we have a different approach for the 2023 European Games in Poland.

“We signed an agreement last year, we are fully integrated into the next European Games: we are going to organise all the European team Championships there, recomposed for the occasion into three divisions.

“Athletics will last a whole week.

“In Munich, athletics should bring the most ratings and attention.

“It's obvious.

“But grouping everyone together favours other sports.

“Not us.

“We have more constraints than advantages.

“We will return to the previous formula, alone, with an edition every two years. Rome has been chosen for 2024.”

The decision about which city will stage the 2026 European Athletics Championships will be made by the European Athletics Council in November.

"We have two excellent candidates for the 2026 European Athletics Championships, with both potential Local Organising Committees having great experience staging major outdoor athletics events," said European Athletics President Dobromir Karamarinov.

"They also have superb stadia and either one of them would make an outstanding host.

"Birmingham will stage the 2022 Commonwealth Games and Budapest will be the host of the 2023 World Athletics Championships and so by 2026 they will be able to draw on these experiences.

"In the past, these cities have also staged outstanding global and continental events and they both have a great legacy in this respect."

The ECM spokesperson added: ‘‘ECM has launched the Host City selection process for the multi-sport European Championships 2026 with the participating Federations who have already committed to the fundamental terms that need to be fulfilled to be part of the event.

"The European Championships offers great benefits to all participating sports, including Athletics, but ultimately it is up to European Athletics if they want to keep their place at the forefront of this exciting evolution of European sport."

They described the multi-sport European Championships as "an event that is bringing major financial benefits and subsidies to European Athletics and that promises to follow on from the hugely positive impact on broadcasting figures for athletics in 2018 compared to their comparable standalone event in Zurich in 2014."

it is understood that European Athletics substantially benefitted from its past participation in the European Championships in terms of revenue and exposure. 

Between 2014 and 2018, the total viewer hours for athletics increased 13% from 343 million to 388 million and its total cumulative audience increased by 35% from 528 million to 714 million.

The total live cumulative audience for this sport also increased by 24.5,% from 229 million to 285 million and its TV audiences were beating average market shares across the major free-to-air channels in Europe, and started to inverse the downward trend of TV ratings on BBC and ARD-ZDF and many other channels for the European Athletics Championships between 2002 and 2014.