Updated Sunday, April 25th
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has criticised UEFA for insisting on crowd numbers in stadia while Europe is still battling with Covid-19.
“I thought that UEFA was out of order, quite frankly, putting that condition of countries. To be putting obligations on countries to force spectators in prematurely was a wrong call by the footballing authorities.”
Dublin and Bilbao were the two stadia in the end that could not give any guarantee on crowd attendance. The Dublin games have been reassigned to St Petersburg and Wembley with Bilbao’s games going to Seville instead.
Friday, April 23rd at 2 PM
FAI Chief Executive Jonathan Hill has spoken to FAI TV today following UEFA’s decision to move four EURO 2020 games out of Dublin this summer.
He has sought to strike a positive note and confirming UEFA’s commitment to the Aviva Stadium hosting a major European Club final in the coming years.
“This is disappointing news for our own FAI staff and for so many people who have been working tirelessly on the project for over seven years now including our bid partners at Dublin City Council, Government and the Aviva Stadium and we want to thank them, the LOS team and all our partners for their support and in particular our 1200 volunteers,” he said.
“Let’s be clear we were ready to host the games if we were allowed to but the reality is that since the turn of the year the pandemic situation here in Ireland has worsened rather than improved and much as UEFA wanted to have fans in our stadia, the Government, as hard as they tried, couldn’t find a way to allow us to have the 25% that UEFA wanted. In the end, as we have done across the last 12 months we respected the Government’s position and ultimately public safety is the most important thing.”
Reacting to confirmation from UEFA that they will welcome a Dublin ‘candidature’ to host a European club final after 2023, the FAI CEO added: “I am pleased to say that we had very constructive talks with UEFA and I am thrilled at the prospect of us hosting a UEFA club final at some point in the very near future, here in Dublin. That is great news.”
Looking back on when the bid was won
The FAI, Department of Tourism, Culture, the Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media and Aviva Stadium are all among more than 250+ members of the Sport for Business network of sporting and business organisations working together across a number of key areas.
Sport for Business Partners
