What is the tournament format?
Nothing has changed since the last European Championship. A total of 24 nations will be divided into six groups of four. The top two from each group will qualify for the knockout stages, along with the four best-performing third-place teams. From then on, it is a straight knockout, with matches heading to extra time and then a penalty shoot-out if they are level.
Do England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland have to qualify?
All four hosts will go through qualification, rather than accepting an automatic place. The Football Association says it is doing so in order to provide England with competitive match practice before the tournament itself.
For the tournament itself, hosts tend to be separated in the draw for the finals. The hosts who make it through qualifying will be expected to be in pot one which has the potential to make the seedings interesting. But it means there are unlikely to be “local” derbies in the group stages.
The FA and Uefa have emphatically ruled out using dynamic pricing for Euro 2028 in a pledge that tickets will be affordable.
Approximately three million tickets will be made available for fans and the general public. Uefa, the governing body for European football, is understood to be planning to raise maximum revenue from premium tickets to keep the lower categories at around £40.
Mark Bullingham, the FA’s chief executive, said: “There won’t be any dynamic ticket pricing. I think that’s really well established. There is a model that we’re really comfortable with. There are a couple of basic principles, one is not dynamic ticket pricing, the other one is there will be approximately half of the tickets will be in category three and also the ‘fan first’ category which is the category below that. So we’re really confident there will be a lot of accessibility ticket pricing.”
Where will England play?
England are in line to kick off Euro 2028 at the City of Manchester Stadium followed by a potential last-16 tie at St James’ Park, Newcastle, or the Hill Dickinson Stadium in Liverpool.
Providing they qualify for the tournament, the other two group games would take place at Wembley. To avoid the drunken carnage seen at Euro 2020, kick-off for the final on June 9 will be 5pm rather than 8pm.
The opening match of the tournament itself will be at the Principality Stadium, renamed Millennium Stadium because of naming rights rules during international tournaments, in Cardiff on June 9.
For England, the tournament would get under way the next day at City of Manchester Stadium. Should they get through the group stage in first or second place, a trip to Newcastle or Liverpool beckons.
The quarter-finals will be held across all four host nations – at the Dublin Arena, Hampden Park, Millennium Stadium and Wembley. The round of 16 will feature one match per stadium, except Wembley, which will host eight matches in total. Each host city will stage a minimum of two different groups, ensuring local fans have the opportunity to see a variety of teams in action.
