2023-10-10 12:15:41
The 2028 European Football Championship will take place in Great Britain and Ireland, in 2032 the continental tournament will take place in Italy and, for the first time in history, in Turkey. The UEFA Executive Committee decided this on Tuesday at its meeting in Nyon. The awards were a formality, there was no competition. Turkey had previously withdrawn its candidacy for 2028 against the favored United Kingdom and Ireland.
The ÖFB received the unsurprising awards positively. “I think that in 2028 and 2032 we can look forward to beautiful tournaments in countries with great love, tradition and passion for football,” said association president Klaus Mitterdorfer in a statement to the APA. “We are working hard on many levels to ensure that Austria can play a good role in sports there.”
The ten venues have already been confirmed for the 2028 tournament, including six in England. In addition to London’s Wembley Stadium – the largest venue with a capacity of 90,000 spectators – other games will take place at Tottenham Stadium (62,850 spectators), Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium (53,400) and the not yet completed Everton Stadium in Liverpool (52,888), as well St. James’ Park in Newcastle (52,000) and Villa Park in Birmingham (42,657).
Wales is represented with the Principality Stadium in Cardiff (74,500), Scotland with Glasgow’s Hampden Park (51,866), Ireland with Dublin’s Aviva Stadium (51,700) and Northern Ireland with the smallest stadium at the Euro 2028: 34,500 fans can fit in the one currently under renovation Casement Park in Belfast. Around three million cards are to be issued for the final round. More than ever before at a European Championship.
Former Welsh football superstar Gareth Bale believes the tournament will help the sport in his homeland. “It’s important, especially for Wales, to stay on the map,” said the 34-year-old, who ended his career at the beginning of the year and appeared as an ambassador in Nyon. The British Minister for Culture, Education, Media and Sport, Lucy Frazer, was enthusiastic. It will be the largest sporting event ever co-hosted by the UK and Ireland. According to Frazer, the European Championship is forecast to have a positive socio-economic impact of up to 2.6 billion pounds (around three billion euros) on the hosting countries.
Italy was the sole host of the European Championships in 1968 and 1980, and Turkey’s hosting role in 2032 will be a first. The Turkish association had already failed in several attempts and would have only been an outsider in an open competition with Italy. “We are very excited and proud,” said Turkish association head Mehmet Büyükeksi after the contract was awarded.
Since it was foreseeable that no ten European Championship-ready arenas would be built or renovated in Italy, both associations decided to run together. To achieve this, UEFA also moved away from its actual guideline that only neighboring countries can host a European Championship together. It is not yet clear which stadiums will be played in 2032.
With the double award, the trend continues that there are increasingly fewer applications for major tournaments and hardly any candidacies from individual countries. Due to the expansion of the European Championship to 24 participants and 51 games, there are fewer and fewer candidates in Europe who can manage the tournament on their own. Two years ago, the European Championship took place in a total of eleven countries during the Corona crisis at the request of UEFA.
The European Championships will take place in Germany in 2024. The 2026 World Cup is planned for the USA, Canada and Mexico. The 2030 world tournament will begin with three games in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay and is then scheduled to be played in Morocco, Spain and Portugal.
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