London’s Wembley Stadium will now stage seven games during the Uefa Euro 2020 national team football tournament after Brussels was today (Thursday) stripped of its hosting rights.
Brussels’ planned Eurostadium project has still not broken ground and Uefa has opted to reassign the Belgian city’s games to Wembley.
London’s 90,000-seat stadium had already been due to host the semi-finals and final of the tournament, but it will now stage the three group-stage fixtures and one round-of-16 match that had initially been assigned to Brussels.
Uefa said that the Eurostadium project had failed to meet the conditions imposed by its Executive Committee during its September 20 meeting.
Uefa also confirmed that the Stadio Olimpico in the Italian capital of Rome will host the opening game of the tournament, which is being staged in multiple cities across Europe for the first time.
The decision to award more games to Wembley comes as a blow to Cardiff’s Principality Stadium and Stockholm’s Friends Arena, which had both been placed on standby should Brussels drop out. Both venues unsuccessfully applied for hosting rights during the initial selection process carried out by Uefa.
The Principality Stadium hosted the Uefa Champions League final earlier this year and the Football Association of Wales had been hopeful of landing the reassigned games.
Uefa also assigned groups to each of the Euro 2020 host cities during its Executive Committee meeting in Nyon, Switzerland today. Group A games will take place in Rome and Baku; Group B games will be held in Amsterdam and Bucharest; Group C fixtures will be staged in Saint Petersburg and Copenhagen; London and Glasgow will host Group D matches; Bilbao and Dublin will host Group E fixtures; and Munich and Budapest have been assigned Group F.
Each qualified host country will play a minimum of two games at home during Euro 2020, which is due to run from June 12 to July 12.
Image: Jbmg40
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