According to what was said at the time of choosing the grounds in 2019, a lot of clubs/cities were not interested in hosting games. The original fixture list has the usual pre-arranged A1 v A2, A1 v A3 etc... Then before the draw UEFA and LOC actually removed this except for England by saying Group B, C and D games in the location but not which games to be played to give them space to select the biggest ground for the most likely sell-out games. They clearly underestimated the Icelandic fans.... France v Italy will actually not sold well funnily enough. France fans do not travel in numbers...
The capacity is 7000 but there are only 4.700 seated stands. Only seated stands will be used according to UEFA.
According to the BBC Euros group stage venues Capacity for the Euros Old Trafford 73,200 St Mary's Stadium 31,600 Bramall Lane 30,400 Brighton & Hove Community Stadium 30,300 Stadium MK 28,600 Brentford Community Stadium 17,600 New York Stadium 11,000 Leigh Sports Village 8,100 Manchester City Academy Stadium 4,700
A very weak response from UEFA in my opinion. In fact I feel UEFA has only added to the insult. The Icelandic FA along with the president of Iceland are now drafting a letter to UEFA, urging them to reconsider their choice of venue. https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/61162603
I think the biggest problem is the tournament takes place when football pitches are relaid and prepared for the new season. A lot of clubs were not interested in hosting games.
Which I find shameful and to their embarrassment. Why not for once to try to be on the right side of history, like Barcelona for example.
I'll just drop this over here: https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...eared-unambitious-in-2018-they-look-worse-now
I agree. Screw EPL clubs: the English FA should have used whatever leverage it might have had to get them to host games. It's the Euros--show some respect to the women and the premier European championship.
I don't have an issue with these venues except for Leigh Sports Village and Manchester City Academy Stadium. Very odd to pick those venues given both how small they are and the fact they are not even all-seater. Otoh, I wouldn't go with larger Premier League stadia anyway, but grounds in the 20k to 25k range. For example, Wigan, Preston, Blackburn and/or Burnley in the northwest in place of the aforementioned two.
The only leverage they have on men's club is either to threaten to expel them for the FA Cup the following season or threaten to expel their women team from the FA WSL for the following season. The men's competitions Premier League and below are controlled by independent companies from the FA. Or they could threaten to not register men players for the upcoming season, but that's about it. Men's football got independent from the FA back in 1992.
It really didn't. Even before '92 all leagues were separate entities from the FA. But the FA retains overall control of football, both male and female. But its leverage over individual clubs providing facilities for international games is definitely limited. After all, these are independently owned businesses. But I still think there are enough stadia in the 20-25k range that they could avoid the two under 10k venues. Hopefully, the FA will be pressured to go that route.
I asked UEFA about this yesterday, they stated "we have no further information at this stage on when a decision is expected to be taken regarding this topic". #WEuro2022https://t.co/sJmVgv632z— Asif Burhan (@AsifBurhan) April 26, 2022 UEFA
Their hand is tied down by CAS not making a decision on the appeal from Russia. The article from the Athletic mentions Ceferin saying " we will probably have a draw between the the teams who nearly qualified" so the Czech Republic, Portugal and Ukraine.
My take is UEFA has made the call to suspend Russia in order to appease the public outrage... but then instead of following it through they passed the ball to CAS. Sportswashing exist. One could only wonder how many inside UEFA has ties to Russia money. EDIT: Many of the governing bodies in Russia, including those in biathlon, football, gymnastics, rugby union, and volleyball, have filed appeals against the sanctions to the CAS. None of the appeals submitted have been successful. Looks like decission about football suddenly can't be reach nor as fast or with the same approach.
A lot of these international organizations do have corrupt members and often seem to cave when under pressure. The IOC banned the Russian Federation from the last summer Olympics, didn't it, for systemic doping--but then later caved and said any Russian athlete could compete who didn't have a doping case going on against him or her.
Panini sticker collection will be released on 12th May. It has 366 stickers but the stickers of the yet unknown 16th team will only be sold later by their online shop. https://paninishop.de/cat/index/sCategory/5777 https://www.collectosk.com/panini-uefa-womens-euro-2022-sticker/
I don't even try. I just buy individual team/player stickers on eBay and leave it at that. Although maybe I should give it a shot this year.
Honestly, the best/simplest way is just to buy the complete album from Panini when it's over . Last time I indeed only got the starter pack and some individual players ...
Huh. I didn't know that was even a thing. So, if you can buy them all anyway, why bother with the packs? Resale/trade?
Ebay has them already on sale for the full album: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/194973493885?hash=item2d65536a7d:g:VUUAAOSw5QFiVX1W I completed WWC 2011,2015 and 2019 plus Euro 2017. Some of my stickers are actually signed by the players.