Originally Posted by
Eirambler
A better way to deal with the qualification issue might be to reserve two qualification spaces for non-qualified hosts. So make everyone (including England) play the qualifiers. But then hold two spaces for any host nations that don't qualify automatically.
So, taking Euro 2020 as an example of how Euro 2028 might work, England, Wales and Scotland qualified on merit for the finals so they don't need to be allocated a host space. That leaves the two host spaces free for the two teams that didn't qualify on merit - which in that case was Ireland and NI. That way everyone might get in. Obviously if fewer than three of the teams don't qualify automatically someone still has to miss out, but that's just the way of it, the worst performing team in qualifying would then have to miss out unfortunately. Just need to make sure it's not us (i.e. make sure Stephen Kenny is long gone by then!).
Having said that I prefer the route where we are just given a qualification spot, but generally nice things don't happen to us so I won't hold my breath.