UEFA Euro 2024: Evolution of Euro Tournaments
The 17th edition of the UEFA European Championship, an international football competition held every four years for the men’s national teams of European member associations, is currently taking place. UEFA Euro 2024 (stylized as UEFA EURO 2024) or just Euro 2024 is another name for the tournament. Germany is hosting the competition from June 14 to July 14, 2024. Twenty-four teams compete in the tournament; Georgia is the only country that debuted in the European Championship finals.
This marks the third time European Championship games have taken place in Germany and the second time they have done so in a united Germany. The 1988 tournament was held in West Germany, and Munich hosted four games of the multi-national Euro 2020. Germany is hosting its first big tournament since the 2006 FIFA World Cup. This competition is the first in Leipzig, previously known as East Germany. Following the COVID-19 pandemic-related postponement of the 2020 edition to 2021, the tournament resumed its customary four-year cycle in 2021.
Hosts For the Game
Before the March 3, 2017, deadline, UEFA declared on March 8, 2017, that Turkey and Germany had declared their intent to host the competition.
The UEFA Executive Committee selected the host in a secret ballot, requiring only a simple majority of votes to prevail. Aleksander Čeferin, the president of UEFA, had the final say if the votes were tied. Reinhard Grindel (Germany) and Servet Yardımcı (Turkey), two of the twenty members of the UEFA Executive Committee, were ineligible to vote. Illness also prevented Lars-Christer Olsson (Sweden) from attending. Seventeen members in all were eligible to cast ballots.
The host was chosen in Nyon, Switzerland, on September 27, 2018. Germany had originally
intended to host Euro 2020, but by May 2012, it had yet to declare a firm interest.
Venues for the UEFA Euro 2024
Many stadiums in Germany could accommodate the 30,000 minimum capacities required by UEFA for European Championship games.
Bologna, Munich, Cologne, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Leipzig, Frankfurt, and Gelsenkirchen, nine of the ten locations chosen for Euro 2024, also hosted the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
Düsseldorf, which hosted the 1974 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Euro 1988 but was not used in 2006, will be the 10th venue. This championship will not use Hanover, Nuremberg, and Kaiserslautern, even though they hosted the 2006 tournament (and the 1974 and 1988 ones in the case of Hanover).
The selection did not include other stadiums, such as those in Bremen and Mönchengladbach. The venues represented all of Germany’s major regions. Still, the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which is home to four of the ten host cities (Dortmund, Gelsenkirchen Düsseldorf, and Cologne), has the most venues for UEFA Euro 2024.
Tickets for the UEFA Euro 2024
The 24 football associations representing the finalists or UEFA itself sold tickets directly through its website for the respective venues. Sales of tickets began on October 3, 2023. The participating teams’ public and supporters could purchase over 80% of the 2.7 million available tickets for the 51 tournament matches. Supporters of each participating team distributed ten thousand tickets for the group stage, 6,000 for the quarterfinals and Round of 16, 7,000 for the semi-finals, and 10,000 for the championship game. There were more than 50 million applications submitted from 206 nations. Most tickets were requested by Turkey, England, Hungary, Albania, and Croatia supporters, aside from Germany. Seats behind the goal during a group match cost €30. The seats in the main stand during the final cost €1000.
Qualified Teams for the Tournament
Germany automatically qualified for the tournament as the hosts. A qualifying tournament determined the 23 remaining spots: the winners and runners-up of the 10 qualifying groups directly qualified for 20 spots, while play-offs decided the remaining 3 spots. Teams that did not already qualify through the main qualifying tournament and performed best in the 2022–2023 UEFA Nations League earned spots in the play-offs. On October 9, 2022, at the Frankfurt Festhalle, the draw for the group stage of the UEFA Euro 2024 qualifying tournament took place. The three play-offs occurred in March 2024, while the qualifying group stage ran from March to November 2023.
Russia will not be able to qualify for Euro 2024, confirmed at a meeting of the UEFA Executive Committee held in Hvar, Croatia, on September 20, 2022. This confirms that all Russian teams have been suspended since they invaded Ukraine in February 2022. It marks the first European Championship final that Russia has missed since 2000.
When is the EURO 2024 final?
Sunday, July 14
Winner semi-final 1 vs winner semi-final 2 (Berlin, 21:00)
Bets On the Winner of the UEFA Euro Tournament
France, the 2018 World Cup champions and 2022 finalists, have purchased the most tickets at ESPN BET (23%), DraftKings (24%), and FanDuel (15%, tied with Germany). Les Bleus also have the advantage in handle at FanDuel (17%, tied with England) and BetMGM (20.9%).
Due to Austria’s strong showing, which saw them win Group D, their odds have increased from +400 to +550 since the start of the competition, despite the French having a sizable liability. According to ESPN BET, the Austrians finished as +800 underdogs to win the group, taking home just 4.7% of the wagers and 3% of the handle. Austria won 20-1 at the open and went on to win Euro 2024.
As they were at the beginning of the competition, England remains the favourite in the betting. However, the odds are slightly shorter, from +350 to +325. According to ESPN Stats & Information, a pre-tournament favourite has not won the European Championship since Spain in 2012. Still, Euro 2024 is the first huge tournament the Three Lions have entered as betting favourites since the 1970 World Cup.
England made the most money at FanDuel and ESPN BET (30%). But they haven’t done much else in the futures market, maybe because people favour them. Nevertheless, bettors have wagered on the English team the most heavily at ESPN BET regarding individual games. Their matchup with Serbia is the third most wagered of the group stage.
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