Northern Ireland’s Windsor Park is among nine venues across Europe to have expressed an interest in hosting the UEFA Super Cup in 2020.
UEFA made the announcement yesterday (Monday), with the deadline for associations to express an interest having passed last week.
Windsor Park will face competition from the National Arena in Tirana, Albania; Dinamo Stadium in Minsk, Belarus; Helsinki Olympic Stadium in Finland; Grand Stade de Nice in France; Sami Ofer Stadium in Haifa, Israel; Almaty Central Stadium in Kazakhstan; Zimbru Stadium in Chisinau, Moldova; and Dragão Stadium in Porto, Portugal.
Associations that are hosting matches during the UEFA Euro 2020 national team tournament, which will be staged in cities across Europe, were not eligible to bid for the event. This ruled out the likes of England, Spain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Russia.
UEFA said that the declaration of interest made by the bidders is not binding, and a final proposal must be delivered with the bid dossier by March 29 at the latest. The UEFA Executive Committee will select the host in May.
Windsor Park is the home ground of the Northern Ireland national team, as well as club side Linfield. The stadium has a capacity of 18,000 and also bid for the 2019 event, which was eventually awarded to Vodafone Park in Istanbul, Turkey.
The Super Cup is traditionally held in August and is contested by the previous season’s winners of the Champions League and Europa League.
The 2017 Super Cup was held at the Philip II Arena in Skopje, Macedonia and saw Real Madrid defeat Manchester United 2-1. This year’s match will be held at the A. Le Coq Arena in Tallinn, Estonia.
Image: Citizen69
