24 teams in EURO 2012 finals?

UEFA are considering an increase in the number of teams playing in European Championship finals from 16 to 24. The change would take effect starting from EURO 2012, whose hosting Poland and Ukraine are bidding for.

The President of the UEFA Executive Committee, Lars-Christer Olsson, informed that this issue was discussed at the Executive Committee meeting and will be placed on the agenda of the January Congress of the organization. The Congress, however, will not make a final decision and will only evaluate the idea.

- Individual members of the Executive Committee expressed their support for the idea. If the Congress likes it as well, we shall inform the countries bidding to host the tournament and ask them if they are ready to accommodate eight additional teams – Olsson informed.

- I think that the tournament can be held for 24 teams at eight stadia assigned by individual candidates. Hotel capacity and other details can become the bottleneck, however – Olsson added.

- This is a good piece of new for us – said the spokesman of the Polish EURO 2012 Staff, Kamil Wnuk. – If UEFA makes this decision, it may turn out that we are the only candidate capable of meeting the requirements. Our application covers 12 stadia, instead of eight as was required. We have all required guarantees and documents for all of them so expanding the event to cover 24 teams might actually help us win the bid for the right to host 2012.

Other bidders to host EURO 2012 include Hungary jointly with Croatia and Italy. The decision appointing the winner of the bidding will be made in April 2007.

The idea to expand the European Championships was first put forward by the Scottish federation, later supported by Ireland, Latvia and Sweden. The problem with holding an event for 24 teams is constituted by the difficult process of selecting the teams to be promoted to subsequent phases of the championships.

Source: PZPN, 8th December 2006