Something about that reminds me of the famous Dustin Hoffman/Laurence Olivier story from when the were making Marathon Man. Hoffman’s character was being tortured so to prepare he stayed up all night, and went running to get out of breath etc. Olivier said to him “Why don’t you try acting ? Its much easier.”Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
Out for a spell, got neglected, lay on the bench unselected.
Well to be honest Scotland can eat a d!ck as far as I?m concerned, if they got it over us they wouldn?t show us sympathy so I?m hardly going to neither should others!
True they can offer 3 bigger stadiums but how many of them have hosted big UEFA final games? Maybe Scotland?s NT stadium but that?s it really.
Will the UK be capable of co-hosting a tournament with us? Seems their precious union is imploding ...
Last edited by ifk101; 11/10/2022 at 8:33 AM.
Bid delivered to UEFA, includes Croke Park and the Aviva for Ireland and Casement Park for the North: https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2022...stadia-listed/
The initial list of 14 stadiums will be reduced to ten eventually.
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
Cost estimated at €135mm with benefits estimated at €361mm and 2,600 new jobs. https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2022...6158-euro-bid/
History shows that financial benefits are almost always overestimated but there are very often "soft" benefits which are hard to measure. If I was close to government I'd be asking that the tax take on these benefits be invested directly into Irish football and not necessarily at grass roots. Let's say the tax take is €100mm: that'd go a long way towards stadium & facilities upgrades across all LOI grounds, which itself will create jobs and generate tax. Let's use this opportunity to create an actual football industry in the country.
Would assume Croke Park was included in case Casement is a no go. Use two in Dublin if Belfast isn't used.
If Qatar can host a 32 x team World Cup, then London alone could host a 24 x team Euro's - 7 x PL clubs + Wembley + Twickenham, in a city of 10 million people which receives over 20 million tourists annually, via its 5 x international airports and the world's most extensive urban, suburban and national transport system outside of Tokyo.
Fact is, while the English FA would love to host it on its own, and could easily do so, they also know that if the bid is to have the best chance of succeeding, the other four Associations' votes/influence will greatly help their case.
And of the four, the FAI/ROI is especially important, since it gives more of a truly "international" feel to the bid, as well as being at least as successful in qualifying for finals as NI, Scotland and Wales over the last quarter century..
Which is why Dublin is getting two stadia, while better-known footballing cities like Manchester or Liverpool may have to make do with one each.
Oh wait, having just typed all that, I realise you were making a Political point, not a Footballing ome.
Sorry.
Last edited by EalingGreen; 16/11/2022 at 6:59 PM.
Doubt itt - see my post above.
I'd be pretty certain that should Casement not be built in time - and I'd be very surprised indeed if it were- then England will get that slot.
I mean, with 4 slots allocated to Dublin/Glasgow/Cardiff as it is, then the remaining 6 slots for England would be very scant "reward", never mind if reduced to 5 with the inclusion of Casement.
I'd say if there's a doubt over Croke, it would be because the GAA weren't prepared to make the necessary accomodations to UEFA/soccer; and/or they couldn't attract the necessary support, including financial, from the Dublin government.
And re those last two, if the money is right, then the GAA will welcome in the 'Garrison Game', while I'd also be pretty confident that Dublin would provide the necessary support (unless someone better qualified than me tells me otherwise).
Last edited by EalingGreen; 16/11/2022 at 6:57 PM.
A multi-million benefit figure ending in a 1 feels an over-sell – can a projected benefit calculator be so accurate given the undoubted uncertainty in forecasting? And from reading the article, the €135m cost is primarily earmarked for the upgrading of Croke Park which has no long-term benefit for the country’s football infrastructure.
And whatever about giving the GAA €135m for a stadium upgrade and the merits of hosting this in the first place, would it not be wiser, from a national benefit perspective and geographical spread, to spend that money on upgrading a stadium outside Dublin?
Anyways .....
Looking at the list of 14 stadiums to be 10, Casement is a non-runner – it’s the only stadium of the 14 that is not built and it is being built to GAA specs and therefore needing an immediate upgrade if built to host the tournament, don’t see Manchester getting two stadiums (Old Trafford needs upgrading?) or London getting three stadiums, and it’s either Newcastle or Sunderland not both giving their proximity. (And is the Everton stadium fully financed/ has iffy financing?) That’s leaves Dublin with a high likelihood of two hosting venues imo, all the more so given this €135million figure being floated around for Croke Park's upgrading.
I hadn't realised the bulk of the 135 million was for Croker. That'd be madness.
Edit: having read the article in full I'm not sure where it says that though.
Last edited by Stuttgart88; 17/11/2022 at 1:50 PM.
Re.Casement, it might just be that come April (14 cut down to 10), it will be included as one of the 10, but with an asterisk beside it. That is, there will need to be a deliverable commitment by a certain date, otherwise that slot reverts to England, which has several ready-made stadia which could be made available at short notice.
As for whether it can meet that commitment must be extremely doubtful, for a whole variety of reasons too complex to go into here.
In which case, I would hope that the IFA had a Plan B, namely that if NI cant host Group games at Casement, then we should get a shiny new National Training Centre as our part of the Euro handout.
Belfast could then be used as a Training base for one of the teams playing in Dublin, while leaving behind a much better long term legacy for the game in NI, than 4 or 5 games at Casement, after which everyone will go home.
While a by-product of such a plan would be that there would be less objection to Dublin getting both Croke and Aviva if those were the only two Euro stadia on ther island
I think it's fairly clear what the 10 final stadiums will be - other than working out which Manchester stadium stays in and which one drops out. Sunderland, most likely London Stadium and Casement (short of a miracle) are odds on to drop out. Possibly Casement might just stay in as a provisional 11th stadium just in case the almost impossible somehow happens and it gets done in time.
So then the question is who gets the second automatic qualification spot? Is two stadiums + a need for an Irish qualifier for the sake of the success of the tournament on the island + having a sovereign government backing the bid enough to swing it for Ireland? On the face of it it should be, but no doubt the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish will try to affect that outcome.
Yep, already half built, due to open sometime in 2024 and I'n sure the financing is all in place, thanks to their billionaire owner:
https://youtu.be/J1aYVxre72o
Being so much more modern, and with the 53k capacity possibly preferable to Anfield's redeveloped 61k, it may even get the nod - who knows?
Anfield can't be involved because the playing field is too small. The new Everton stadium will definitely be one of the 10.
Crikey! You're quite right.
I somehow had imagined Anfield was in the running, but looking again at the 14 nominees, its not there. So yes, Everton should be a shoo in.
Everton’s stadium is less than 50/50 to be built. They started building without funding. They’re in financial dire straights and they need £500m to complete. They’ve lost all the usmanov cash. And it’s not outlandish to think they could be relegated
https://www.theguardian.com/business...ley-moore-dock (stadium issues)
https://www.theguardian.com/football...lubs-financing (general finance issues)
Last edited by elatedscum; 18/11/2022 at 2:41 PM.
From what I've read Old Trafford has been in a bit of a state for a while now, and efforts to improve the place have stalled. In a choice between there and the Etihad it'll be an easy decision, even if one city is allowed two stadiums.
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
Can’t understand how Anfield which is one of the most iconic stadiums in the world isn’t deemed suitable, when it has hosted champions league semi finals down the year. Not a Liverpool fan, but just very strange.
Surely, the fairest thing would be that England qualify automatically as hosts and the four others compete for one place, with the remaining three then going into qualification as usual. On paper, we might be decent by then but who knows.
The Scots and Welsh won’t go with us qualifying automatically and the North won’t either imo. To be fair, I would be a bit ****ed off if it was England and say Scotland getting the automatic spots so can’t really blame others for kicking up a ****storm here. It isn’t like we are giving 3 or 4 stadiums.
Hilarious that Saudi is after wc 2030 now - imagine if they get it ahead of the South Americans and I think Spain/Portugal - genuinely could see a breakaway from UEFA and Comebol if that happens.
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.
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