Two competitions and four countries designated. The European football federation, UEFA, announced on Tuesday the award of Euro 2028 to the United Kingdom and Ireland and the 2032 edition to Italy and Turkey. These announcements were expected since each candidate was the only one in the running.

The two teams, made official during a brief ceremony in Nyon (Switzerland), by the Slovenian Aleksander Ceferin, the president of UEFA, will succeed Germany, host of Euro 2024 (from June 14 to July 14 ), and confirm the trend towards joint organizations of major sporting competitions, the only way for many countries to host them.

From Wembley, in London, to the City Stadium in Manchester via St James Park, in Newcastle, Hampden Park, in Glasgow, the Dublin Arena, the National Stadium in Cardiff or Casement Park in Belfast, the ten stadiums of 2028 are known and for many already legendary, for football as for rugby or Gaelic sports.

The contours of the 2032 organization remain more mysterious, Italy and Turkey having campaigned separately for a long time before joining forces at the end of July, without revealing their future host cities, while nearly 1,400 kilometers away. The bird separates their two capitals.

Turkey, unsuccessful candidate since 2008

“The heart of football will beat in Türkiye in 2032! », rejoiced, Tuesday, Osman Askin Bak, the Turkish Minister of Sports, after the announcement of the European body. On the social network X (formerly Twitter), the latter added: “We are happy to welcome

Turkey, an unsuccessful candidate in each edition since 2008, had thrown in the towel for the organization of Euro 2028 by betting everything on a common ticket with Italy in 2032. Before preferring Germany for the Euro 2024, UEFA notably deplored “the absence of an action plan in the field of human rights” in Turkey. This criterion no longer appeared in the allocation procedure for 2032, while tens of thousands of opponents of the regime of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan remain imprisoned.

If the Football World Cup will double in size from 2026, with 48 teams competing, since 2016 the European Championship has maintained a final phase bringing together 24 selections, i.e. 51 matches to be organized, compared to 104 for the next World Cup. in 2026, jointly organized by the United States, Canada and Mexico.

It is for this reason that the five federations of the British Isles (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland) focused, from 2022, on their candidacy for the Euro 2028, after initially vying for the 2030 World Cup, entrusted last week to the Morocco-Portugal-Spain trio, with three matches organized in South America (Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay).

Before the International Federation (FIFA) dared this first tournament on three continents, UEFA had been a pioneer of joint organizations by awarding Euro 2000 to Belgium and the Netherlands, Euro 2008 to Austria and Switzerland, the 2012 edition to Poland and Ukraine and that of 2020 (which was finally held in 2021, due to the Covid-19 pandemic), intended to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the event , to eleven host cities across Europe.