UEFA Euro 2024
The 2024 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2024 or simply Euro 2024, was the 17th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international football championship organised by UEFA for the European men's national teams of their member associations. Germany hosted the tournament, which took place from 14 June to 14 July 2024. The tournament involved 24 teams, with Georgia making their European Championship debut.
It was the third time that European Championship matches were played on German territory, and the second time in reunified Germany, as West Germany hosted the 1988 tournament, and four matches of the multi-national Euro 2020 were played in Munich. It was the first time the competition was held in what was formerly East Germany, with Leipzig as a host city, as well as the first major tournament since the 2006 FIFA World Cup that Germany served as a solo host nation. The tournament returned to its usual four-year cycle after the 2020 edition was postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Italy were the defending champions, having won the 2020 final against England on penalties, but failed to defend the title after being eliminated by Switzerland in the round of 16. Host nation Germany were eliminated by Spain in the quarter-finals; Spain went on to win the tournament for a record fourth time after defeating England 2–1 in the final.
Host selection
On 8 March 2017, UEFA announced that two countries, Germany and Turkey, had announced their intentions to host the tournament before the deadline of 3 March 2017.The host was chosen by the UEFA Executive Committee in a confidential ballot, needing only a simple majority of votes to win. If the votes were equal, the final decision rested with UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin. Out of the 20 members of the UEFA Executive Committee, Reinhard Grindel and Servet Yardımcı could not vote because they were ineligible. Lars-Christer Olsson was also absent due to illness. In total, 17 members were able to vote.
The host was selected on 27 September 2018 in Nyon, Switzerland. Germany initially planned to fully host Euro 2020, although it had not announced any firm interest by May 2012.
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 GermanyVenuesGermany had a wide selection of stadiums that met UEFA's minimum capacity requirement of 30,000 seats for European Championship matches. The Olympiastadion in Berlin was the largest stadium at UEFA Euro 2024. It hosted the final of the tournament, along with three group-stage matches, a round of 16 match, and a quarterfinal.Of the ten venues selected for Euro 2024, nine were used for the 2006 FIFA World Cup: Berlin, Dortmund, Munich, Cologne, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Leipzig, Frankfurt, and Gelsenkirchen. Düsseldorf, which was not used in 2006 but had previously been used for the 1974 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 1988, served as the tenth venue; conversely, Hanover, Nuremberg and Kaiserslautern, host cities in 2006, were not used for this championship. Munich, the site of the first game of UEFA Euro 2024, was also a host city at the multi-national UEFA Euro 2020 tournament, hosting four matches in front of a greatly reduced number of spectators due to COVID-19 restrictions. During the tournament, all but Arena AufSchalke were known by different names, mainly due to the stadia sponsorship prohibition. Various other stadiums, such as those in Bremen and Mönchengladbach, were not selected. The area with the highest number of venues at UEFA Euro 2024 was the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with four of the ten host cities. Team base campsEach team chose a "team base camp" for its stay between the matches. The teams trained and resided in these locations throughout the tournament, travelling to games staged away from their bases. The "team base camp" needed to be in Germany.
TicketingTickets for the venues were sold directly by UEFA via its website, or distributed by the football associations of the 24 finalists. Ticket sales started on 3 October 2023. More than 80% of the 2.7 million tickets for the 51 tournament matches were available for the fans of the participating teams and the general public. Fans of each participating team allocated 10,000 tickets for group stage matches, 6,000 tickets for the round of 16 and quarter-finals, 7,000 for the semi-finals, and 10,000 for the final match. Over 50 million applications from 206 countries were received. Besides fans of Germany, most tickets were requested by fans supporting Turkey, Hungary, England, Albania and Croatia. Prices ranged from €30 to €2000.QualificationAs the hosts, Germany qualified for the tournament automatically. The 23 remaining spots were determined by a qualifying tournament; 20 spots were decided by the direct qualification of the winners and runners-up of the 10 qualifying groups, with the remaining three spots decided by play-offs. Places in the play-offs were given to the teams that performed the best in the 2022–23 UEFA Nations League who did not already qualify via the main qualifying tournament. The draw for the UEFA Euro 2024 qualifying group stage was held on 9 October 2022 at the Festhalle in Frankfurt. The qualifying group stage took place from March to November 2023, while the three play-offs were held in March 2024.Qualified teamsOf the 24 teams that qualified for the tournament, 19 had participated in the previous edition. These included the defending champions Italy and runners-up England, as well as 2022 World Cup runners-up France and bronze medalist Croatia. Portugal was the only team to qualify with a flawless record, whilst France, England, Belgium, Hungary, and Romania also qualified without a loss.Albania and Romania returned after missing out on Euro 2020, the former qualifying for only their second major tournament. Serbia and Slovenia both returned for the first time since Euro 2000, with Serbia qualifying for the first time since Serbia and Montenegro became separate nations, and Slovenia qualifying for their fourth major tournament as an independent nation. Georgia beat Greece on penalties in the play-offs to qualify for their first-ever tournament since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, also becoming the only debutants for this edition and ensuring every final tournament since the inaugural Euro 1960 saw at least one new team make their debut. Notable absentees included Sweden, Russia, and Wales. Sweden failed to reach the finals for the first time since Euro 1996 and also failed to qualify for their second major tournament in a row, having missed out on the 2022 World Cup. Russia, who were regulars at finals since Euro 2000, were barred from the qualifiers altogether in the aftermath of the country's invasion of Ukraine. Wales, who reached the knockout stages at the previous two editions, including the semi-finals at Euro 2016, lost to Poland on penalties in the play-offs. Having made their debut at the previous edition, both North Macedonia and Finland failed to qualify for this edition. Disqualification of RussiaAt a meeting of the UEFA Executive Committee in Hvar, Croatia, on 20 September 2022, it was confirmed that Russia would be excluded from qualifying for Euro 2024, reaffirming the suspension of all Russian teams following the country's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and making this the first European Championship finals Russia would miss since 2000.Final drawThe final tournament draw took place on 2 December 2023, 18:00 CET, at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. The teams were seeded in accordance with the overall European Qualifiers rankings. Hosts Germany were automatically seeded into pot 1, and they were placed in position A1. The three play-off winners were not known at the time of the draw, and the teams participating in those play-offs, scheduled to be held in March 2024, were placed into pot 4 for the draw. The draw was disrupted by various sexual noises whilst it was taking place, as the result of a prankster.
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