Ireland confirmed as co-hosts of Euro 2028 as Uefa accepts joint bid with UK

So, it’s official. Ireland will host a major international soccer tournament for the first time in 2028 as the European Championships come to these islands. The success of the joint bid lodged by the UK and Ireland was confirmed at Uefa headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland this morning. Though the outcome was a formality, with Turkey having withdrawn from the process last week, the bid team still had to go through with their official presentation.

Ireland will host six matches in the tournament at the Aviva Stadium, which will be renamed the Dublin Arena for the duration. England will host 28, Scotland and Wales six each, with a rebuilt Casement Park hosting five. The final will be in Wembley.

As for whether or not Ireland will actually get to play in the tournament, Uefa have not guaranteed passage but it appears that it will take a pretty hapless sequence of events for any of the hosts to miss out. As it stands, all five countries will play in the qualification campaign for the 24-team tournament. A safety net will be reserved for two of the host countries in the event that they don’t qualify as of right. If more than two of the host countries don’t make it, the best two go through. Uefa has not yet announced on what basis they will decide who the best two are – the Nations League may well play a part.

In a statement welcoming the decision, the FAI skipped past the fact that the result was a foregone conclusion once Turkey cleared the stage to focus on their joint bid with Italy for Euro 2032. Predictably enough, they chose instead to stress the economic benefits of hosting the tournament, although it remains to be seen just how watertight their figures and projections end up being.

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“This decision is a very positive one for the association and the return on investment for the FAI and our football community has always been at the core of this now successful bid,” said FAI Chief Operations Officer David Courell. “As an association there is a material financial return from a relatively small outlay.

“We stand to receive hosting fees for the use of the Dublin Arena (Lansdowne Road) and we will also benefit from a delivery bonus which will be shared amongst the five host Associations. Both of these payments will result in a multi-million euro boost to the FAI in 2028, a peak year in our debt repayment plan.”

As with everything, the money is the brass tacks. With the FAI so entrenched in legacy debt and with soccer facilities in the country so skeletal, the idea of hosting a major soccer tournament could be painted as a luxury the game here can ill-afford. The FAI say otherwise, with CEO Jonathan Hill bullish on foot of the bid’s success.

“It’s a good start that the five-nation partnership, and the governments behind them, have committed to investing a minimum of €51 million into Euro 2028 legacy initiatives with €6.2 million of this ringfenced for Ireland. This money will allow us to build a framework to invest in facilities and wider initiatives.

“Our FAI Strategy 2022-2025 clearly identifies qualification for major tournaments as one of our core pillars as we all know the effect a tournament can have on participation levels within our game. We also know that qualification for any major tournament can realise anything between €10-€15 million of increased revenue via participation and commercial bonus payments so hosting these six proposed games is a solid starting point for both our sporting and financial ambitions for 2028 and beyond.

“Earlier this year we outlined the €863m facility challenge facing the game at all levels in Ireland over the next 15 years. We believe hosting Euro 2028 can be a significant catalyst in our discussions with government as well as with other football and private investors in converting that long-term Facility Vision into reality.”

In the blizzard of numbers, keeping track of the true worth of the tournament will be front and centre over the coming five years. In a briefing paper for ministers back in April, the bid referenced a Deloitte impact analysis that estimated that 90,000 fans will come to Ireland for the tournament. That already appears to have undergone an element of grade inflation, with sports minister Catherine Martin hailing the success of the bid this morning and the “120,000 visitors” it is expected to bring to the country.

An element of doubt continues to surround Casement Park, the Northern Irish element of the bid. It involves the redevelopment of a dilapidated GAA stadium and the project has been hit by numerous delays. Uefa has not made clear whether a contingency plan is in place. But the stadium has been backed by the UK and Irish governments and Patrick Nelson, the Irish FA chief executive, said he was confident it would be completed on time.

“We’re assured by the government [in UK and Ireland] that the funding will be made available for it,” he said. “We’re fairly sure it will fit within the timescales we need. We’re going to be working with Uefa a lot over the next five years and we’ll ensure that it’s all done.”