Euro 2020: Seville and St Petersburg announced as new hosts
Matches moved from Bilbao and Dublin due to COVID-19 and lack of fans
Dubai: Seville will replace Bilbao as a host city for Euro 2020 with St Petersburg in Russia, already a host venue, taking some games from Dublin, Uefa vice-president Zbigniew Boniek said on Friday.
Uefa’s executive committee was meeting on Friday to finalise plans after Bilbao and Dublin could not guarantee the presence of fans at matches. Munich, however, appears set to remain on the roster.
“Seville and San Petersburg - officially,” tweeted Boniek, “There is a bit of work ahead of us, we start over, camp, journeys, all logistics.” Boniek is an official of the Polish FA and Poland were due to play group stage games in Dublin and Bilbao.
It was not immediately clear to which fixtures Boniek was referring. Dublin was also scheduled to host a game in the knockout round of 16. Seville will take all Bilbao’s group games and its round-of-16 match.
Seville’s 60,000-capacity La Cartuja stadium, which has this year hosted two Copa del Rey finals plus the Spanish Super Cup final, is expected to be named as the venue.
Munich was the third host city that had been unable to offer Uefa the fan guarantees it needed but a new plan to allow at least 14,500 supporters into the 75,000-capacity Allianz Arena, despite rising infection numbers in the country, was approved by Uefa, according to German media reports.
Bayern Munich’s stadium is a host for three group matches, all involving Germany, as well as one quarter-final game.
“Despite the current negative situation with the pandemic in Germany it is expected that the situation will improve until June,” the German football federation (DFB) said in a statement before the UEFA meeting.
“That is why a scenario with a minimum capacity of 14,500 spectators in Munich for the Euros is seen as realistic,” it said.