December 17 – UEFA have opened the bidding for the 2032 European Championships and have confirmed it will run alongside 2028, with hosts for both being chosen at the same time in a radical change from past practice.
Applications to stage EURO 2028 was opened in September and UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin says bidders can only go for one of the tournaments, not both.
“Expressions of interest have to be at UEFA in March and then we will see how many bids we receive and decide the timeline with a decision in September 2023,” he said.
Going down the route of awarding two hosts at one time has not exactly been a roaring success in the past, as FIFA can testify after selecting the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosts in December 2010, in part fuelling the biggest corruption scandal in footballing history.
But a UEFA statement said: “The move seeks to help consolidate long term football and financial planning for the European national associations by offering clearer prospects to partners and rights holders.”
Italy and Turkey are widely expected to enter the Euro 2028 contest to host the tournament alone. But adding the 2032 bidding to 2028 poses a dilemma for countries who are also interested in staging the World Cup in 2030, notably a possible four-nation British bid and Spain/Portugal.
Meanwhile Ceferin acknowledged that the women’s 2025 under-19 Euros, scheduled for Belarus, is being closely monitored given the scale of human rights issues under the country’s authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko.
“We know the situation right now is not good in Belarus,” Ceferin said, suggesting UEFA would not go if the tournament was next year. “We would not play if we would be in a rush. When the time comes we will take the decision.”
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