Germany to apply to host Euro 2024
January 20, 2017
The German football association (DFB) said in a statement that its presidency had voted unanimously on Friday to apply to host the event, which would be the first major men's football tournament to held in the country since the 2006 World Cup. The statement said that the plan was to nominate 10 stadiums as host sites.
The DFB, which still has the affair over how it won the right to host the 2006 World Cup hanging over it, stressed that the site selection would be "open, fair, and transparent," and it said that it had invited Transparency International to closely monitor the process.
"We will submit a first-class application and ensure that we choose the 10 possible sites in a transparent and traceable manner. In Germany, we have the stadiums, we have the infrastructure and we have the know-how to organize an economically sensible and ecologically friendly Euro," DFB President Reinhard Grindel was quoted in the statement as saying.
"I will work as hard as I can at the international level to ensure that our arguments are convincing and that we will have the opportunity, after 1988, to organize another European championship," he added.
The statement said that the operators of German stadiums with a capacity of at least 30,000 needed to inform the DFB of their interest in hosting Euro 2024 matches by February 17 at the latest. It said the DFB would officially declare its interest to UEFA, football's European governing body, by March 3.
The DFB is to announce the 10 successful sites in mid-September of this year and UEFA has set a deadline of April 27, 2018 for all potential hosts to submit their official bids. UEFA is to announce in September 2018 which country will host the 2024 tournament. The next European championship, in 2020, is to be played in 13 different cities across the continent, including Munich.