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Wed, 04 Oct, 2023 - 09:53

John Fallon

Dublin’s Aviva Stadium will be confirmed to host at least six Euro ’28 games next Tuesday when the UK and Ireland bid to co-host the tournament is announced as the successful unopposed bidder by UEFA.

Turkey were the only other potential bidder for the showpiece but they’ve officially withdrawn to concentrate on staging the 2032 event alongside Italy.

UEFA will next Tuesday confirm the host countries for both instalments of the tournament at an event in Nyon, Switzerland.

UEFA said in a statement: "Further to the announcement on 28 July which revealed the desire of the Italian and Turkish FAs to submit a joint bid to stage UEFA Euro 2032, the UEFA administration has today written to both associations to confirm that their joint bid has been duly received and will go forward for assessment and consideration by the UEFA Executive Committee.

"As indicated by the FA of Türkiye with its submission of the request for a joint bid, their bid to stage UEFA Euro 2028 is consequently withdrawn.

"The award of both tournaments still requires the approval of the executive committee at its meeting in Nyon on 10 October. The presentations at that meeting will be an important part of the process which will take due consideration of the content of the bid submissions before reaching a decision."

Candidates are due to present their final submissions to UEFA’s executive committee then but a formal ratification, rather than vote, is the only formality awaiting the UK and Ireland bid. The five-way tilt involves England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Cardiff’s Principality Stadium is favourite to stage the opening ceremony, according to Wales’s Irish chief executive Noel Mooney, with Wembley pencilled in for the final.

Dublin and the current derelict Casement Park from the Island of Ireland are part of this ticket, with the unbuilt Belfast venue being chosen ahead of Croke Park when the formal bid was lodged in April.

Unequivocal cross-party backing, despite the continued absence of an Assembly at Stormont, has been cited to prioritise construction work getting underway shortly.

Automatic qualification is not guaranteed but FAI chief executive Jonathan Hill recently suggested two slots would be made available at the 24-team spectacular for nations from the five-strong bid that don’t emerge from the regulation or Nations League process.

The hierarchy for this could be determined by FIFA ranking once games are completed in March 2028.

“We are looking forward to presenting our bid to Uefa on October 10th,” said the FAI in a statement on Wednesday morning in response to Turkey dropping out.

“These are exciting times, and we have a very compelling Euro 2028 proposal for Uefa. Our bid is ground-breaking for the men’s European Championships and will deliver lasting legacies across the whole of Ireland and the UK.

“We will share full details of the bid in Nyon next week and are confident that Uefa will approve our candidacy to host Euro 2028.”

Chief executive Hill said last month: “We’re excited about the very strong bid we’ve put together with our partners in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and are confident about what it offers UEFA and the wider football community.

“Cooperation from our local partners, including government, Dublin City Council, the Aviva Stadium and others, have been exemplary.

“It’s been calculated that the Irish economy will benefit by approximately €240m from the tournament if we were to win it.

“We know that interest in football will grow even more on foot of hosting the world’s third largest sporting event on these shores.

“This will further 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 LOI to international.

“All the while the FAI is in a much stronger financial position now than where it was just two years ago.

“We have reduced our debt from €63.5m to less than €43m now which has been driven by the planned and systematic approach we have adopted to reduce and restructure out inherited debt.”

UK & Ireland host stadiums: