Croke Park off the ticket in FAI's Euro 2028 hosting bid
No Croke A Pic: General Go: Of Park Miller/sportsfile View Tyler
Croke Park will not be joining Lansdowne Road in the Euro 2028 bid, with the unbuilt Casement Park submitted as the second stadium on the island of Ireland.
The joint UK and Ireland bid was lodged ahead of Wednesday’s deadline. It remains the strong favourite to land the 24-match tournament but UEFA’s executive committee won’t vote on its candidacy against Turkey’s bid until their October meeting.
The GAA’s 82,000-capacity headquarters was among the 14 stadia included in the initial dossier last November but the issue of temporary seating on the Hill 16 terrace always posed a challenge when it came to the crunch.
UEFA’s criteria for their last two Euros in 2016 and 2021 specifically rules out such an interim measure.
“No provisional or temporary seating installations will be permitted”.
Jonathan Hill, the FAI's chief executive, admitted that the "one city, one stadium" approach was central to whittling the venues down to 10.
Only last week, Dublin City Council agreed to provide €11m in funding for the tilt but the city will have just one venue – the 51,000-seater national stadium, known locally as Aviva Stadium but Dublin Arena in UEFA parlance due to commercial conflicts.
Casement Park’s inclusion will raise eyebrows given the Belfast venue’s redevelopment has been mired in controversy. After a series of objections and cost overruns, work is finally due to start on the proposed 34,578-seater arena later this year.
UEFA had previously raised concerns Casement’s availability but should they be assured, it thrusts Northern Ireland firmly into the bidding process.
Their national stadium, previously known as Windsor Park, is 12,000 seats short of the minimum 30,000 capacity, meaning without Casement they would have only been in line to stage the draw or provide a training base.
That final list of stadia includes one each for the FAI (Dublin), Northern Ireland FA (Belfast), Wales (Cardiff) and Scotland (Glasgow) with the English FA supplying six.
The final in July 2028 has been earmarked for Wembley Stadium in London.
It’s understood that UEFA will grant places to two members of the joint-bid that fail to qualify on the field through the conventional system.
FAI chief executive Jonathan Hill said: “In all major bid processes, you start with a short list of stadia, and this is whittled down to a final agreed list in order to give the bid the best chance of success and reflects the streamlined nature of the tournament.
"This bid started with 14 Stadia, and we now have our agreed final 10 which have been submitted. The bid, with the exemption of London, is based on a ‘one city, one stadia’ principle and together we believe the list offers an array of superb stadia from across the UK and Ireland.
“We already have the UEFA Europa League final coming to Dublin in 2024 and we are very confident that we have submitted an exciting and impactful bid to UEFA today.
“We are committed to a legacy across socio-economic benefits and a legacy for grassroots football across our five nations. The Irish economy will benefit by approximately €240million, verified by Deloitte, and the interest in football will be greater than ever. This will only support our plans to grow the game and will act as a catalyst as we seek to finance infrastructure across all levels of Irish football, from Grassroots to League of Ireland.
“Our hope is to welcome football fans from Europe and across the world to Dublin for a number of great games in 2028 and that is a really exciting prospect for all of us. The tournament will also help create positive long-term community impact through volunteering, tourism and other training opportunities that provide people with skills for life.”