The hosts of the two European Football Championships after the 2024 European Championship in Germany have been determined. Great Britain and Ireland will host the tournament in 2028, and the European Championships will take place in Italy and Turkey in 2032.
The Executive Committee of the European Football Union UEFA decided this at a meeting in Nyon. The award was considered a formality for only one application at a time.
“It’s hard work. I know it wasn’t easy for you,” said UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin in the short ceremony addressed to the representatives of the future European Championship hosts: “But when I saw the presentations today, I really enjoyed it.” Within a second he felt “as if the European Championship had already started”.
Turkey had previously withdrawn its candidacy for 2028 against the United Kingdom’s favored bid with Ireland. The next European Championship will take place in Germany next year – the German Football Association clearly won against Turkey with its application.
Stadiums for 2028 have been determined
The ten stadiums for the European Championship in five years have already been determined: In addition to London’s Wembley Stadium – the largest venue with a capacity of 90,000 spectators – there will also be games in England at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (London) and the Etihad Stadium (Manchester), which is not yet completed Everton Stadium (Liverpool), St. James’ Park (Newcastle) and Villa Park (Birmingham). Wales is represented by the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Scotland by Glasgow’s Hampden Park and Ireland by Dublin’s Aviva Stadium. In Northern Ireland the game is played at Casement Park in Belfast.
The Turkish association had already failed in several attempts and would have only been an outsider in an open competition with Italy. However, since the 1990 World Cup host was unlikely to have ten European Championship-ready arenas built or renovated, 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.
The trend of double awarding continues
With the double award, the trend continues that there are increasingly fewer applications for the expanded tournaments and hardly any candidacies from individual countries. The 2030 World Cup is expected to start with three games in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay and will then be played in Morocco, Spain and Portugal. This still has to be confirmed by the congress of the world association FIFA. The 2026 world tournament will take place in the USA, Mexico and Canada.
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 continental tournament took place in a total of eleven countries during the Corona crisis.
The UEFA decision-making body includes, among others, Hans-Joachim Watzke and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge as representatives from Germany.
