2016 UEFA European Football Championship

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The 2016 UEFA European Football Championship, or Euro 2016 for short, will be the 15th quadrennial top-level European football event. It will be held in the summer of the year 2016. The host nation(s) are yet to be selected. It is very possible that 24 nations will participate.

1 Hosting Requirements
2 Possible Bids
3 External links

[edit] Hosting Requirements

A minimum of eight stadia is necessary to host a Euro in the present 16-team format. Should the tournament be expanded to 24, the experience of past 24-team World Cups (1982 to 1994) shows that 9 to 12 stadia are necessary to host such a competition, with 12 being the ideal number. Such an extensive requirement for stadium construction or renovation tends to favor bids by single large countries or joint bids by two medium-size countries.

[edit] Possible Bids

Several countries are reported to be considering bids:

[edit] Scotland & Wales

In December 2006, the Football Association of Wales announced it was tentatively considering the possibility of jointly hosting the tournament with the Scottish Football Association.

The Welsh part of the bid would include the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, as well as Cardiff City's new 30,000-capacity stadium at Leckwith. The recently opened Liberty Stadium in Swansea would be used too. One to three more stadia in Wales would be needed, depending on the number of participating teams.

Scottish stadia likely to be used would include national football stadium Hampden Park as well as club grounds Celtic Park and Ibrox (all in Glasgow), and also Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh. Up to two more stadia would be needed in the case of a 24-team Euro. However, a bid featuring three stadia in the same host city would be a first in the history of major football competitions and would likely put severe strain on Glasgow's transportation and lodging infrastructure. Pittodrie Stadium in Aberdeen or a second stadium in Edinburgh such as Tynecastle Stadium or Easter Road are possible alternate venues that would mitigate this risk.

[edit] Sweden & Norway

According to an article [1] in the Swedish newspaper Göteborgs-Posten, Sweden and Norway are considering co-hosting the championship, with Göteborgs's Ullevi Stadium as the venue for the final. Göteborg is the natural choice for the final as the city is close to Norway. However, the 43,000-capacity Ullevi currently holds a UEFA 4-star rating only and would need expanding to over 50,000 (and improved amenities) to attain the 5-star rating necessary to host the final. The new 50,000-seat football-only national stadium in Solna, on the other hand, will be designed to 5-star standards from the start and will be a central part of the bid.

Other stadia being considered in Sweden are a new stadium in Malmö and Olympia in Helsingborg. Ullevål in Oslo, Lerkendal Stadium in Trondheim, Brann Stadion in Bergen, and Viking Stadion in Stavanger are the planned venues in Norway. One to four more stadia would be needed if the tournament were to be expanded to 24 teams.

[edit] Bulgaria & Romania

According to Internet feeds and an article in some Bulgarian and Romanian newspapers, a Romanian senator has proposed that the two countries bid jointly to host Euro 2016. This preliminary information features no supporting details and needs confirming as of February 2007. Two stadia in Sofia, Bulgaria, and one stadium each in Bucharest and Craiova in Romania are near-certain parts of any bid.