Scotland and Wales tentatively thinking about joint 2016 bid

[frasermc]

hopefully that's as far as they get.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/7762389.stm

The Scottish Football Association could launch a bid to host the Euro 2016 football championship with Wales.

An SFA spokesman has confirmed that talks will take place about a joint bid although the proposal is "tentative".


how could we hope to host this tournament with Wales when, by 2016, it will have increased to 24 teams. the last tournament, was staged between Austria and Switzerland and had 16 teams with 8 venues, four in each country.

certain venues held as little as 30,000 fans and this was a major problem with a well attended EURO's. i'd imagine stadiums for 2016 would need to be able to hold 40,000 minimum and with the addition of 8 extra teams you'd be looking at another four stadiums.

could Wales come up with six 40,000 stadiums? i can't see it. four max which would mean we'd need to have eight of the venues.

how to divide that up?

Glasgow - 3
Edinburgh - 3(would Murrayfield be considered?)
Aberdeen - 1
Dundee - 1

the venues in Edinburgh would need to be significantly upgraded if not entirely rebuilt. could Tynecastle or Easter Road be increased to a minimum of 40,000?

would the most sensible thing to be tear down Dens and Tannadice and build one 40,000 stadium on the site of the two existing ones? what would Utd and Dundee fans have to say about that.

and Aberdeen might love a new shiny 40,000 stadium but would it seriously disadvantage it's SPL team once the EURO's packs up and moves on leaving them with a stadium only a quarter full for nearly every SPL home game?

[alexp92]

does it really count if almost all of the stadiums are in the same cities?
of course hampden, parkhead, and ibrox are already fit for something like this, as well as murrayfield, and the millennium stadium.
hearts are talking about the new stand to bring tynecastle up to 26,000 seats, and if they could manage to get this done in time, plus fill in the corners, the capacity could be brought up to at least 30,000. which is enough. the same could be done for easter road, with their plans for a possible new stand also.
although not ideal, i think one stadium in dundee would probably be needed. i say make the capacity at least 30,000 for the tournament, but have the capacity decreased after it's over for the dundee teams. believe they are doing this in poland and the ukraine. could also work for a possible stadium in aberdeen.
i think the new cardiff city ground will be 26,000 seats, but im sure that could be expanded also.swansea's ground could undergo an expansion also.
that would probably be enough.

[frasermc]

hearts are talking about the new stand to bring tynecastle up to 26,000 seats, and if they could manage to get this done in time, plus fill in the corners, the capacity could be brought up to at least 30,000. which is enough.

Hearts talk about a lot of things, like paying their players bonuses and on time. at least they'd get support to increase Tynecastle but i think that EURO 08 proved that 30,000 seater stadiums isn't enough.

[Gordon EF]

Hearts talk about a lot of things, like paying their players bonuses and on time. at least they'd get support to increase Tynecastle but i think that EURO 08 proved that 30,000 seater stadiums isn't enough.

Surely it's enough for the games that won't pull in huge crowds. Was't the problem there that almost all the stadiums were 30,000 seaters. Scotland has 4 50,000+ stadiums and Wales has one, surely that would be alright.

Extra capacity can be added onto stadiums temporarily, I think that's what Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen and Dundee/Utd should do here. I think it's worth going for this tournament.

[alexp92]

Hearts talk about a lot of things, like paying their players bonuses and on time. at least they'd get support to increase Tynecastle but i think that EURO 08 proved that 30,000 seater stadiums isn't enough.

then it won't be in scotland and wales.

[frasermc]

Surely it's enough for the games that won't pull in huge crowds. Was't the problem there that almost all the stadiums were 30,000 seaters. Scotland has 4 50,000+ stadiums and Wales has one, surely that would be alright.

that's a fair point. although that's taking into consideration that we would use Murrayfield and that Ibrox hasn't been turned into a shopping centre by then. :p

these are the capacities of the 8 stadiums used at EURO 08 -

Austria

Innsbruck - 30,000
Salzburg - 30,000
Klagenfurt - 30,000
Wien - 50,000

Switzerland

Geneva - 30,000
Basel - 40,000
Bern - 32,000
Zurich - 30,000

so your earlier point tallies up. but when the tournament increases to 24 teams surely that would mean that ticket requirements would increase by 30-40% and would need to be taken into account when deciding the next hosts/co-hosts.


then it won't be in scotland and wales.

exactly.

[alexp92]

exactly.

close topic.