Belgrade files candidacy for hosting European Football Championship 2020
Belgrade has officially filed an application for one of thirteen cities-hosts candidates of the European Football Championship in 2020! The deadline for submission of the application to the UEFA is September 12. This application is however just the first step towards the goal and the Football Association of Serbia (FSS) is to enter a serious negotiations with the Government, which as of the very next date is to be a guarantor that our capital is seriously interested in hosting the championship.
The UEFA decided at the beginning of this year that the final tournament in 2020 is played as per a new model according to which matches in groups and the knockout phase would be played in twelve cities. The semifinals and final would be played in another, the 13th city.
The condition for a city to apply for a host is a stadium of at least 50,000 seats. Stadiums for semifinals and final must have 70,000 seats, for quarter finals 60,000 and 50,000 seats for competition in groups.
Zoran Lakovic, the FSS Secretary General confirmed to us from the Wales that the Association had made the first step.
‘We have applied for the host in 2020 but serious negotiations with representatives of Belgrade and the Government are yet to take place since the Government has to guarantee that our application for the candidate is serious’, Lakovic said.
In view of the conditions stipulated by the UEFA it is clear that matches in Belgrade might be played at the restored ‘Marakana’ Stadium or at a newly constructed national stadium. In that case the eventual construction works would have to begin in 2016 at the latest.
It is interesting that German media have already published a list of the most serious candidates for hosting cities of the 2020 European Championship: Berlin, Rome, Moscow, Madrid, Athens, Lisbon, Paris, Brussels, London, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Basel and Zagreb.
