http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18069127

 

Supposedly we need to put forward 10 stadiums to declare a bid but all 3 nations have the same problem. Too many stadiums in the same city and pretty poor transport infrastructure.

 

Id see the current choices as

 

Murrayfield

Hampden

Millenium Stadium

Aviva Stadium

Expanded White rock stadium

 

5 others from where though?

New Stadiums in Dundee & Aberdeen?

New Stadiums in Wrexham & Aberystwyth?

New Stadiums in Cork, Limerick & Galway ?

I don't like it really but I guess it's inevitable with the increase in teams. Can't be that many countries in Europe with the capability to host that number of games.

 

 

Yeah, cause UEFA are gonna make sure that Lisbon & Moscow host Group A and then Athens and Reyjkavic are used for Group B and so on.

 

You're also less likely to be able to find a bed in major European Cities rather than the 6th biggest city in Poland.

 

Bigger stadia will also mean less fans can get into matches. There's also less scope for neutral fans.

 

We should just instantly dismiss this as shite cause it's a change to the Status Quo.

 

 

Aye because its purely because its a change to the status quo that I think its a bad idea... 

 

All good points but I was thinking of it more along the lines of the astronomical costs involved travelling across an entire continent for games rather than just a country or two.  Even if its not going from Moscow to Lisbon as you pointed out I'd still imagine the costs will be prohibitive for most. It's pretty much certain that people will have to rely on air travel to go between games, at the very least long train journeys which drive costs up.

 

Fair enough bigger stadiums mean in theory more fans can go. How many of those grounds will be full for smaller matches though? And how many normal fans will get to go? Uefa are notorious for allocating masses of sponsors tickets, what's to say that will change?...

 

The hotel issue isn't really all that relevant either, If one/two countries host a tournament its much easier to travel between cities due to the shorter distances involved... you wouldn't necessarily have to scramble around for a hotel in "the 6th biggest city in Poland" if there's other cities within easy reach...

 

Obviously they might manage to schedule things so to keep travelling to a minimum but going on track record I'd doubt it'll happen.

 

Seems to me this is one big money making exercise dressed up as "something innovative".

As Ed says, fans fucked over for these corrupt cunts bank balance.

Not necessarily, fans have to travel at tournaments anyway and sometimes significant distances to get to the next game.  If groups are kept within neighbouring countries it would be fine.  For example greece and italy or holland germany, spain and portugal. 

The truth is that nobody really knows all of the pitfalls and benefits until it's actually been done in practice.

 

Give it a try for a couple of competitions, and if it turns out to be shite, they can go back to the old model, no harm, no foul.

 

Instinctively I quite like the sound of the idea.

 

 

We should just instantly dismiss this as shite cause it's a change to the Status Quo.

 

 

If they keep the Status Quo then we could all be in Dire Straits.

 

and then Athens and Reyjkavic are used for Group B

 

 

Now that would be some journey!

 

 

 

Now that would be some journey!

 

 

 

Yes

 

 

it would.

Having experienced a tournaments held in one country I cannot see the experience being the same the fans but can see why it is appealing to the various associations as will require minimum investment to host.

Having experienced a tournaments held in one country I cannot see the experience being the same the fans but can see why it is appealing to the various associations as will require minimum investment to host.

 

Exactly, they don't need to build any stadiums as they are already there. Why pump money into building new stadiums when they can just play in Them.

 

Having experienced a tournaments held in one country I cannot see the experience being the same the fans but can see why it is appealing to the various associations as will require minimum investment to host.

 

I went to the last 2 Euros, and at both of them, outside the host cities there wasn't much in the streets to show that it was on, i'm not sure that having host cities in different countries will make much difference.

 

When they had the world cup in America it was played over a bigger area surely.

 

 

I think this is a decent change.

 

 

How anyone can thing bringing games closer to fans is a bad thing is beyond me.

 

 

 

 

On the upside we may well see some matches at Hampden.

On the downside there is the travel issue and the lack of national involvement, identity and enthusiasm for a tournament when it is held in one country.

 

tbh this is all a side issue to the ridiculous idea to increase the tournament to 24 teams, immediately diluting what was the major factor in making the Euros far better the World Cup for the last decade or two, competitive competition.

 

I think this is a decent change.

 

 

How anyone can thing bringing games closer to fans is a bad thing is beyond me.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not familiar with this artist

I think this is a decent change.

 

 

How anyone can thing bringing games closer to fans is a bad thing is beyond me.

 

 

 

 

 

Yes on one side of the coin there may be more opportunity to attend a game closer to home, but should Scotland qualify, who knows whether all the group games would be geographically close to each other or not.  I share the scepticism of some in this thread that the fans could get shafted.

 

it may or may not be a good idea from the fans' pov. in one way it's a shame as each tournament has a particular identity, and there's a lot more nationalities mingling. if they want more fans to have access then they need to first look at their awful prohibitive ticket pricing.

 

mainly i think it reflects the fact that staging a major competition in its entirety is a luxury very few (if any) countries in europe can afford.

 

without something like this, spain, greece, italy would probably not bid for anything for many a year, whereas the odd game here or there they'd be more likely to.

 

of course it's as much about kick-backs as anything too. but again, if more people can bid, the money the corrupt cunts can demand gets driven up.