MOSCOW, August 16. /TASS/. A commission from the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) will pay a visit to St. Petersburg next month to assess the use of sports infrastructure, left after the 2018 FIFA World Cup, for matches of the 2020 UEFA Euro Cup, Alexei Sorokin, the head of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) Russia-2020, told TASS.
Russia’s second largest city of Saint Petersburg was granted the right to host three group stage matches and one of the quarterfinals of the UEFA’s 60th anniversary Euro Cup in 2020, which will be staged in 12 countries across Europe.
“The details will follow after the visit of the UEFA commission to St. Petersburg,” Sorokin said in an interview with TASS. “The visit is scheduled to take place in September and the commission is set to discuss what they would like to leave and what would be expedient” in terms of infrastructure in St. Petersburg left after the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
The 47,000-seat capacity St. Petersburg Arena served as the venue for the opening and final matches of the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup as well as for matches of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, including one of the semifinals.
Earlier this summer, UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin told TASS he had no doubts that St. Petersburg would be ready for hosting matches of the European championship.
The decision to hold the 2020 Euro Cup, which will be celebrating its 60th anniversary that year, in various European states instead of in one or two hosting countries was made at the UEFA Executive Committee’s meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, on December 6, 2012. It was the initiative of UEFA’s then-President Michel Platini, who proposed a concept of the 2020 tournament “EURO for Europe.”
The matches of the 2020 Euro Cup will be held at stadiums in cities of 12 different European countries, namely in London (England), Munich (Germany), Rome (Italy), Baku (Azerbaijan), Saint Petersburg (Russia), Bucharest (Romania), Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Dublin (Ireland), Bilbao (Spain), Budapest (Hungary), Glasgow (Scotland) and Copenhagen (Denmark).
Each of the hosting cities will serve as the venue for three group stage matches and one match of either the Last 16 round or of a quarterfinal. The semifinals and the final matches will be played at the Wembley Stadium in London, while the opening match of the anniversary UEFA Euro Cup will take place at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.
A total of 24 national football teams will be playing in the final tournament of the 2020 Euro Cup. All 55 UEFA national member teams, including 12 teams from the hosting countries, will have to play in the qualifying matches to vie for the berth in the final 24-team lineup of the quadrennial European football championship.
It is possible that some of the national teams from the hosting countries of the 2020 Euro Cup will not be playing in home soil in case they fail to clear the qualifying stage. The Qualifying Draw for the 2020 UEFA Euro Cup is scheduled to take place at the Convention Center Dublin, Ireland, on December 2, 2018.
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