Who’s going to pay for Euro 2016?

A joint Scotland-Wales bid for the European Championships will require the building of new stadiums, amongst other things

Scotland has already bagged one top sporting jewel by securing the 2014 Commonwealth Games for Glasgow, but its hopes of getting the European Championships two years later will probably never get out of the blocks.

The cost of staging the Commonwealth Games was £288million when the city won the race 13 months ago to be awarded the event, most of the money being provided by the Scottish Government. The funding and the logistics of any international football tournament are far messier and harder to keep track of, which is why Scotland and Wales are nursing the idea of a partnership to persuade Uefa to award Euro 2016 to the Celtic duo.

At the moment, the idea is merely just that. An idea. A ball to be kicked around when the SFA and its Welsh counterpart meet in February. The motivation, as with all sporting events, is money. And lots of it. However, European finals, like the World Cup, require a far greater injection of capital and that is likely to shoot down those Scottish-Welsh ambitions.

The most important problem is a shortage of stadiums. Nearly every bidder, whether joint or unique, just doesn’t have the correct amount of off-the-peg football grounds waiting to be used for such an event. Everyone ploughs money into building new stadiums, which sometimes has a positive spin-off for club football, as in France after the 1998 World Cup finals, when crowds filled the new grounds for French league game; but in Portugal, several local authorities were left with white elephants, as local teams – notably at Braga and the Algarve – could only muster a few thousand fans outnumbered by empty seats.

The Uefa criteria for stadiums used at the European finals is a minimum of 30,000 seats. That leaves any Scottish-Welsh bid with a real headache. At the moment, the Celtic duo only have five stadiums that fit the bill – and those are concentrated in three cities; Edinburgh, Cardiff and Glasgow.

Uefa is not keen on the idea of one city having two venues – or three in the case of Glasgow, which contributed Hampden Park, Ibrox and Celtic Park to the SFA’s failed joint-bid with Ireland to host Euro 2008. The Welsh do not bring much to the bid. The Millennium Stadium’s huge capacity is their only card, and the new Cardiff City ground would be much closer to a 30,000-capacity ground.

The infrastructure, in terms of travel, is weak. Links between Wales and Scotland are minimal, though the same could easily be said of Poland and Ukraine, the joint-bid that won the right to host Euro 2012 – and Uefa has been alarmed at the slow progress of stadiums and travel infrastructure in those countries, just as it was in 2004 when Portugal was ordered to pick up the pace of construction work under pain of losing the Euros.

When the SFA put its seven-stadiums package together for the Euro 2008 bid, it contained Murrayfield’s 68,000-seater and Easter Road to represent the capital, the big three grounds from Glasgow, and one stadium each in Dundee and Aberdeen. While both cities would love to be given a new all-seated ground – Aberdeen have been trying for years to leave Pittodrie – the problem of public funding is far greater now than it was in the 2008 bid.

The SFA’s dream was to stage a small tournament that fitted in with the image of a country of five million people. That was fine when the list of finalists was pegged to 16 but Uefa’s plan to expand to 24 finalists, requires a stadium roster of 12 – and that is a gap the Scots and Welsh could not bridge. Euro 2008 cost nearly £500million to stage. The incentive is cash. Switzerland and Austria, the joint-bid that won the vote six years ago when the Scots and Irish did not even get past the first round, generated revenues of over £1billion – some 50 per cent more than the previous tournament, according to Uefa.

The sale of corporate hospitality packages has soared from £23million in 2004 to over £100million, partly reflecting the relative wealth of Austria and Switzerland in comparison to Portugal. The majority of the revenue came from television deals and sponsorship and the amount is about 50 per cent higher than that generated at Euro 2004 in Portugal.

“The sums from television rights and sponsors are much bigger than the sums generated from ticketing,” David Taylor, the general secretary of Uefa and the man who led the SFA’s bid in 2002 when he was chief executive, said. “Considerable sums are now also being generated by corporate hospitality. We earn about €1.3 billion from this whole exercise.”

The European economy received a €1.4billion boost according to sport business research group, StageUp. Austria and Switzerland receive €470million from staging the event.

By pooling their resources, Wales and Scotland could ask for greater UK funding to come up with the stadiums that would be needed to meet the 2016 bid criteria. The timing of such a request, though, could not be worse. Current public purse restraint is likely to see any requests for funding for new football stadiums given a red card.

Northern Irish FA keen to join talks

Raymond Kennedy, the Irish Football Association president, is keen to have further talks with his Scottish counterparts over the prospect of helping them host the 2016 European Championships. But the SFA favours a joint bid with Wales, as Northern Ireland does not possess the stadiums required to be co-hosts in a two-country bid.

Despite his enthusiasm, Kennedy admits a radical overhaul of facilities in the province is needed. Plans for a new national stadium to replace Windsor Park, the home of Linfield, have long been in the pipeline but no decision has yet been taken about the best way forward.

“I would be delighted if we were part of any bid for a championship that would give us some games,” Kennedy said. “But, frankly, I do not think we are in that position at the moment because we do not have any stadiums that are suitable. Hopefully things might change in that respect and we will have a new national stadium in about two years’ time.”

He added: “We are due to meet the Scots in other business in the new year and would be prepared to have more formal talks then about a possible bid for the championship. At the moment, we have held only tentative discussions about the situation. It is certainly an interesting idea.”

The IFA is likely to find itself frozen out of any bid, with its only hope being getting the SFA and the Football Association of Wales to agree a three-country proposal. However, Uefa is unlikely to accept three host nations, as the privilege brings automatic qualification for the finals.

The stadiums

A minimum of eight 30,000-seater stadiums are necessary to host the tournament in its present 16-team format, with three boasting 40,000 seats and one 50,000. The expansion to 24 teams suggests between ten and 12 stadiums would be necessary for a successful bid. But what of the possible venues?

Hampden Park

With a capacity of more than 52,000, Scotland’s national stadium in Glasgow would be at the heart of any bid and would be the likely venue for the final. If a joint bid with Wales is agreed, it could face competition from Cardiff’s larger Millennium Stadium, though there is a facility to boost Hampden’s capacity by up to 20,000.

Millennium Stadium

Should Scotland go with Wales, their partner’s national stadium would be the tournament’s other possible venue for the final. With a capacity of almost 75,000, the Football Association of Wales would demand it holds one or both semi-finals at the absolute minimum.

Celtic Park/Ibrox

The home of Celtic is currently Scotland’s biggest football stadium, with a capacity of just under 61,000. With Uefa preferring a city not to have more than two venues hosting matches, Celtic Park’s size gives it an obvious advantage over the home of Rangers, whose hopes rely on boosting Ibrox’s 51,000 capacity. There have been reports recently the club are considering increasing it to as much as 70,000.

Murrayfield

The Scotland rugby team’s national stadium has hosted football matches before and is equipped to do so again. Its capacity of almost 68,000 makes it the largest ground in Scotland and a near-certainty to be included in any bid.

Cardiff City’s new stadium

Scheduled for completion next year, Cardiff’s new stadium will have a capacity of 25,000, which could be upgraded to 30,000-plus.

Liberty Stadium

The home of Swansea FC since 2005, the Liberty Stadium’s capacity of just over 20,000 could also be expanded temporarily or permanently.

Pittodrie/Caledonian Stadium

The homes of Aberdeen and Inverness Caledonian Thistle boast obvious geographical advantage that would appeal to Uefa as it will take the tournament to the north of Scotland.

Pittodrie would need its capacity boosted from just over 22,000, but it may be that Aberdeen are in a new ground by then. A plan for a 32,000-seat arena, with a retractable roof, was included in Scotland’s unsuccessful Euro 2008 bid.

Inverness’s 7,700-capacity stadium would need a radical overhaul or a new venue would have to be built.

Racecourse Ground

Like Pittodrie, the home of Wrexham has a geographical advantage being in north Wales, but it would need a facelift to bring it up to spec from its current 15,500 capacity.

Rugby Park

The home of Kilmarnock is Scotland’s fifth largest football stadium with a capacity of more than 18,000. This could be boosted in theory to around 30,000.

Tynecastle/Easter Road

Much like Celtic and Rangers, Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian would likely go head-to-head to host matches. Both Tynecastle and Easter Road have capacities of less than 18,000 but the latter was included in the Euro 2008 bid with a view to boosting that to 30,000. Hearts are planning to increase the capacity of Tynecastle but Hibernian would be favourite to land games.

New stadium in Dundee

Scotland’s Euro 2008 bid included proposals to build a new shared stadium for Dundee United and Dundee and this could be revived. The clubs’ current homes are adjacent to each other on the same street.

Parc y Scarlets

The new home of the Scarlets rugby union team in Llanelli only opened last month and although its current capacity is less than 15,000, it could be temporarily upgraded for the tournament.

Source: The Times Online

Tags: Commomwealth Games, Euro 2016, European Finals, Event Funding, Scotland, SFA, Uefa, Wales, World Cup

Category: International Events, Sporting Events