EM 2032: Italy is currently the sole candidate
As things stand at present, there is only one country applying for the EM 2032.
Italy drew his interest in the EM 2028 back and bet on the 2032 tournament. That’s how the association went FIGC out of the way of the favored application from the United Kingdom and Ireland and at the same time bought time for modernizing the infrastructure. “There is now a larger time window for this“, shared the FIGC with. “Italy must invest“, said Uefa-President Aleksander Ceferin. “No new stadiums have been built for many years and the few that have been rebuilt are small.“
Apart from Italy, no other application has been indicated so far – unexpected expressions of interest are still possible and conceivable – for both tournaments. On the websites of Uefa a PDF form for an application can still be accessed.
Decision on hosting in Fall 2023 or earlier
The process is from the Uefa been formulated like this:
- March 23, 2022: Deadline for expressions of interest
- March 30, 2022: Exact requirements for the applications will be announced
- April 5, 2022: Announcement of the official applications
- April 12, 2023: Deadline for submitting complete application documents
- September 2023: Announcement of the host countries for the tournaments 2028 and 2032
This process could be shortened if there were only one application for each tournament. The next meeting of the UEFA Executive Committee is scheduled for April 7th or 8th.
Required: ten large stadiums and maybe a tournament for 32 teams
According to UEFA, ten stadiums are required per tournament, one of which should have at least 60,000 seats and one or two at least 50,000 seats. Four more stadiums must have 40,000 seats, three more 30,000.
The 2028 and 2032 tournaments are based on 24 teams with 51 games, writes UEFA in the call for applications. An important sentence: “Information on the dates as well as the number of teams and games is preliminary and therefore subject to change.“And it is by no means improbable that the EM 2024 in Germany will be the last with 24 teams for the time being. UEFA are considering expanding the tournament to 32 teams.
After the EM 2021, there were several media reports that UEFA was considering expanding the EM from 24 to 32 teams. This would have the advantage of no longer having to laboriously determine the best third parties for a compilation of the round of 16 games. However, if 32 out of 55 teams qualified, qualification would be almost devoid of all excitement. Only in 2016 was the tournament enlarged from 16 to 24 teams. The tournament in Germany has so far been planned with 24 teams.