UEFA on Tuesday awarded Euro-2028 football to the United Kingdom and Ireland and Euro-2032 to an alliance concluded this summer between Italy and Turkey, without much suspense since each candidacy was the only one in the running. The two teams, made official during a brief ceremony by the president of the European body Aleksander Ceferin, will succeed Germany, host of Euro-2024 (June 14-July 14), and confirm the trend towards joint organizations major sporting competitions, the only way for many countries to host them.
The contours of the 2032 organization still unclear
From Wembley in London to the City Stadium in Manchester via St James Park in Newcastle, Hampden Park in Glasgow, the Dublin Arena, the National Stadium in Cardiff or Casement Park in Belfast, the ten stadiums of 2028 are known and for many already mythical, for football as for rugby or Gaelic sports.
The contours of the 2032 organization remain more mysterious, Italy and Turkey having campaigned separately for a long time before joining forces at the end of July, without revealing their future host cities, while nearly 1,400 km as the crow flies separate their two capitals. If the Football World Cup doubles in size from 2026, with 48 teams competing, the European Championship has maintained a final phase since 2016 bringing together 24 selections, or 51 matches to be organized compared to 104 for a World Cup.
UEFA, pioneer of competitions in several countries
This is also why the five federations of the British Isles (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland) focused in 2022 on their candidacy for the Euro after initially sought the 2030 World Cup, entrusted last week to the Morocco-Portugal-Spain trio with three matches in South America.
Before Fifa dared this first tournament on three continents, UEFA had been a pioneer of joint organizations by awarding Euro-2000 to Belgium and the Netherlands, Euro-2008 to Austria and Switzerland, the 2012 edition in Poland and Ukraine and that of 2020, intended to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the event, in eleven host cities across Europe.