By Andrew Warshaw
April 24 – Twenty four hours before the deadline for final bid submissions, Poland and the Czech Republic have pulled out of the race to stage Euro 2020 while Scotland prepared to officially launch its campaign.
Midnight Friday is the cut-off point for applications to host the pan-European, 13-city tournament with over 20 hopeful cities expected to be in the frame.
They will not, however, include Warsaw and Prague who have now dropped out, the former not unexpected since Poland jointly hosted Euro 2012 but the latter, confirmed by the mayor of Prague, a huge blow to one of eastern Europe’s most popular cities that has relatively easy access to fans across the Continent.
Prague had been hoping to host three group matches and a quarter-final and the Czech FA blamed the lack of financial guarantees from city authorities for a new stadium for the withdrawal.
“The mayor’s decision means a loss to Prague and to the Czech Republic but mostly to all the supporters of Czech football,” said a statement from the Czech Football Federation.
Prague councillor Lukas Manhart said nobody from the federation had held official talks about any bid with city representatives in the past three months. This view, however, was refuted by the federation who countered it had “done its utmost to provide all necessary documents and financial guarantees related to the bid that could have been successful. The last thing necessary for the candidacy was just the host city agreement.”
With only a handful of countries capable of hosting an expanded 24-team finals on their own, both in terms of costs and logistics, UEFA president Michel Platini’s idea is for as many cities as possible to enjoy partial host status. Finland and Portugal nevertheless also pulled out recently, with Turkey odds-on favourites to get the nod from UEFA in September to stage the prestige semifinals and finals in Istanbul.
Rivals England are expected to strategically submit two separate bids, one for the early stages of the tournament and one for the latter. The Scottish FA was reportedly also preparing to formally announce today that Glasgow will be put forward before the Friday night deadline. All candidates will then have five months to convince UEFA before the 13 successful cities are announced in September.
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