Northern Ireland faces exclusion as host of European Football Championship – DW – 14.09.2024

Northern Ireland has reacted with great disappointment to the threat of being excluded as a host venue for the 2028 European Football Championship. Northern Ireland’s Prime Minister Michelle O’Neill described the British central government’s decision not to cover the significantly increased costs for the necessary new construction of the Casement Park stadium in Belfast as a “missed opportunity for our sport and our economy”. At the same time, O’Neill announced on the online service X: “The Casement Park will be built.”

The new arena is actually supposed to host five European Championship matches. Originally, around 77 million pounds sterling (91 million euros) were estimated for the new building. The costs have now risen “dramatically” to more than 400 million pounds (474 ​​million euros), according to London. The British government also sees a “significant risk” that the stadium will not be completed in time for the tournament in four years.

UEFA tests impact on European Championship

The European football association UEFA said it had taken note of the British government’s position and would discuss the impact on the planning of the 2028 European Championship host cities.

Casement Park in the Northern Irish capital was built after the Second World War as a venue for regional sports such as Gaelic football and hurling. But the stadium later fell into disrepair and plans to rebuild it have been in place for years.

There is already speculation about which cities in England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland will get the European Championship matches that were previously scheduled for Belfast. According to media reports, a UEFA source assumes that the games will be moved to London’s Wembley Stadium, Dublin’s Aviva Stadium, Glasgow’s Hampden Park and Cardiff’s Principality Stadium.

wa/kle (dpa, thetimes.com)