Belfast’s Casement Park and Everton’s Bramley-Moore Dock. Glasgow’s Hampden Park, Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, and English venues St James’ Park, Villa Park, the Etihad Stadium, and Tottenham Hotspur Stadium are also on the list. Dublin’s Aviva Stadium has also made the final shortlist.
The bid is backed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf, and Wales’ First Minister Mark Drakeford, all describing it as the biggest sporting event our islands have ever jointly staged.
The Casement Park site has not been in use since 2013, and the stadium has been primarily a Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) venue, with the redevelopment subject to a legal challenge. The Bramley-Moore Dock stadium, which is expected to host around 53,000 spectators, is still being constructed and expected to be completed by 2024. The owners at Everton have revealed that costs for the stadium could amount to £760m, which is £260m more than quoted last year.
The decision on which country will host the 2028 Euro finals is expected to be announced by Uefa’s executive committee in September. All potential host stadiums must start the work by at least the summer of 2024, four years before the tournament. The joint bid highlights that the largest percentage of ticket holders who will travel to matches are able to access them via public transport. They also anticipate they will generate £2.6bn combined for the economies of the participating nations.
The bid aims to prioritise sustainability and good governance practices, with record three million tickets made available to the public. The tournament will also aim to avoid potential disorder, with an official Uefa review on disorder at the Euro 2020 final in Wembley concluding that ticketless, drunken, and drugged-up thugs could have caused death as they stormed the stadium.
