Ireland will battle it out with 31 other European countries as part of the bidding process for the 2020 European Championships, which will be held across 13 cities.
Uefa announced the 32 member countries to have entered bids for the competition this morning, with Dublin joining London, Glasgow and Cardiff amongst others to submit entries before today’s deadline.
In total 39 cities are listed with Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Ukraine entering more than one city in their initial bid.
Spain entered four cities in total, with the capital Madrid being joined by Barcelona, Bilbao and Valencia.
The bid cities cover a vast geographical area, spanning over 6,000 kilometres west to east from Lisbon in Portugal to Astana in Kazakhstan and over 3,000 kilometres south to north from Jerusalem to the Finnish capital of Helsinki.
The matches will be split into 13 different packages, with 12 standard packages, including three group matches and one knock-out round (round of 16 or quarter-finals), and one package for the semi-finals and the final.
Each of the 32 associations will be allowed to present up to two bids – one for the standard package and one for the semi-finals/final package. Each national association can decide to present the same city, or two different cities, for these two bids, but there will be a maximum of one venue appointed per country. The candidates have the right to change their initial host city selection, but must submit their final bid dossier by April 25th 2014.
The appointment of the host cities by the Uefa Executive Committee will take place on September 25th 2014.
"We are extremely proud to see the huge interest in the bidding process, with more than half of our member associations willing to host matches at Uefa EURO 2020," said Uefa president Michel Platini.
“The finals will be a great celebration of football across the European continent, and the 60th anniversary edition will be truly special, by really coming to the doorstep of all football fans.”
Member associations that have stated their interest, together with their proposed provisional host cities, are: Armenia (Yerevan), Azerbaijan (Baku), Belarus (Minsk), Belgium (Brussels), Bulgaria (Sofia), Croatia (Zagreb), Czech Republic (Prague), Denmark (Copenhagen), England (London), Finland (Helsinki), France (Lyon), Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (Skopje), Germany (Munich), Greece (Athens), Hungary (Budapest), Israel (Jerusalem), Italy (Rome, Milan), Kazakhstan (Astana), Netherlands (Amsterdam), Poland (Warsaw, Chorzow), Portugal (Lisbon, Porto), Republic of Ireland (Dublin), Romania (Bucharest), Russia (St Petersburg), Scotland (Glasgow), Serbia (Belgrade), Spain (Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia), Sweden (Solna), Switzerland (Basel), Turkey (Istanbul), Ukraine (Kyiv, Donetsk) and Wales (Cardiff).
