By Andrew Warshaw
May 16 – UEFA, European football’s governing body has bizarrely refused to identify those countries who have expressed an interest in hosting the 2020 European Championship.
Despite official statements from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that they would be interested in sharing the tournament – as exclusively revealed by insideworldfootball – as well as Georgia saying they too were keen, UEFA said simply that “some” countries had notified them by yesterdays midnight deadline.
A brief statement on UEFA’s website declined to confirm what the rest of the world already knows.
“UEFA has announced that, within the 15 May deadline that was set by the UEFA Executive Committee at its March meeting, some national associations have expressed their interest in the bidding process for the organisation of the UEFA European Football Championship in 2020,” a statement said.
Even more strangely, UEFA for some reason has now given the green light for any other nations to enter the bidding process – regardless of whether they expressed an initial interest before the deadline.
“In accordance with the decision of its Executive Committee and as presented to the UEFA Congress, UEFA will now launch a formal process which will allow any of its 53 member associations to submit their candidature, irrespective of whether or not they declared a preliminary interest in hosting the 24-team competition,” UEFA said.
“The bidding process will last approximately 18 months to allow candidates to elaborate their dossiers.
“A detailed timeline will be developed in the coming weeks and will be submitted, along with proposed bid regulations, to UEFA’s Executive Committee on the occasion of its next meeting on 30 June in Kiev.
“A decision on the hosts can be expected at the beginning of 2014, with the exact time frame still to be decided.”
UEFA (headquarters pictured above) later issued a statement attempting to clear up any confusion.
“We have received declarations of interest from several national associations, but we will not disclose from which and how many, as these were just preliminary intentions and not formal bids,” it said.
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