UEFA withdrew four matches of Euro 2020 to relocate them in London. Why? The inability of the Belgian organisers to ensure the delivery of the stadium project.
UEFA has decided on Thursday 7th December, 2017, to withdraw four matches from Brussels for Euro 2020 and to reprogram the stadium in Wembley, London, announced its President Aleksander Ceferin.
The UEFA Executive Committee decided “unanimously” to withdraw these four matches in Brussels, at the failure of the Belgian organizers to ensure that the stadium project would be delivered on time, Mr. Ceferin said.
“Due to the inability of Eurostadium project to meet the requirements of UEFA, the four matches originally planned in Brussels are reprogrammed at Wembley.”
Wembley Stadium where the two semi-finals will take place and the final, will welcome a total of seven meetings.
The opening match for which Brussels was in the running, will be held at the Olympic Stadium in Rome.
“We were in talks with Brussels have long said Mr. Ceferin. They were unable to provide the documents and guarantees. They had time, they did not. ”
“Experts have estimated that the risk to UEFA was too great. First, it seemed that this would be a problem for Brussels to finish the stadium on time. And if the stadium was not finished on time, it would have been difficult for us to find an alternative, “said the Slovenian president of the instance.
Rather Wembley and Rome
The Ghelamco construction firm called himself able to build in 18 months the “Eurostadium” stadium of 60,000 seats, on land belonging to the city of Brussels located in the Flemish land, on the common boundary of Grimbergen.
But Flanders, the Belgian region to decide at the last meeting, has not yet issued the building permit.
Brussels was one of thirteen cities chosen to host Euro 2020 with this new format was decided to celebrate the 60 years of UEFA.
Thus, after a draw made Thursday, Rome and Baku will host the matches of Group A, St. Petersburg and Copenhagen Group B, Amsterdam and Bucharest Group C, London and Glasgow Group D, Bilbao and Dublin group E and Munich Budapest group F.
