Euro 2020 (1 Viewer)

[7 - No tomorrow]

Dublin hosting games

Dublin selected to host Euro 2020 matches

Dublin will host one last-16 game and three group games at Euro 2020, UEFA has announced. The decision was made today by UEFA at their meeting in Geneva.

England has won the right to host the final and semi-finals. London’s Wembley Stadium will stage the climax of the European Championship, the first time a major football tournament has been held in England since Euro 96.

UEFA’s executive committee awarded the final to Wembley ahead of Munich’s AllianzArena at a meeting in Geneva.

Hampden Park in Glasgow will host one Euro 2020 last 16 match and three group games,

 

[тхеодоре кацзынски]

I'm conflicted. Its great that we'll get to see some big games in Dublin but this business of spreading the competition all over the continent seems bizarre. Surely it takes some of the sense of ceremony/atmosphere from the whole event? From Dublin to Baku and St Petersburg to Bilbao? Unorthodox to say the least.

 

[Richie]

Thats great news.. We are paired with Glasgow for the group stage apparently. The only downside being that its a significant coup for John Delaney and fellow FAI goons.

I was in favor of the idea but they should have given it entirely to countries who would never have a chance to host the whole thing.. London, Munich, Rome etc have already and will have plenty of future opportunities to host international tournament games. At least the group stage & round of 16 venues (and Baku!) are giving the smaller nations a chance.

 

[Hector Grey]

That's deadly news. The competition is farce anyway.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

While I kind of wish for the days of an 8 team tournament, wasn't Europe considerably smaller (numerically) then too?

16 might be optimal, but I'm going to see how 24 works out before making a final decision.

Might let a few underdog dark horses into the knockout stages.

 

[Unicron]

So long as host cities are clustered together for group stages at least so no one has to fly from Azerbaijan to Ireland or anything fucking stupid like that I'm not opposed to the multi-nation host.

This is more an issue with the world cup than the euros but these things are getting more and more expensive to host and it's not exactly ethically justifiable for the governing bodies to accept a bid and tell the hosts "spend a load of public money on white elephant stadia," as South Africa and Brazil demonstrated (as well as the recent winter olympics in Russia) the supposed boon to the public in terms of infrastructure improvements etc., they may or may not come, depends on if there's time to get around to them. So what does that leave you with? You can have it on a rotating basis in a number of big, richish countries who are capable of hosting without a whole lot being done (England, Germany, Spain, France, Italy) or give it to a bunch of countries that might have one city and one stadium capable of hosting games, where again, not a huge amount of extra investment is needed to get them ready.

There's also the issue of governments plouging money into elite level sport, it's a different argument I suppose but I'd prefer to see government money spent on grass roots facilities that enable kids and the public at large to participate rather than giving it to the top of the pyramid so we can feel the reflected glory of someone doing well at the olympics/making it to a champions league club etc. There's enough money floating around football for it to be self funding at the very top level. Norway appears to have struck the balance the best in terms of funding top athletes and providing facilities for everyone.

 

[Cormcolash]

Hopefully we'll end up with Croatia vs Serbia or something mental like that, just turn the city into a warzone for a day or two