UEFA Euro 2020

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The **2020 UEFA European Football Championship**, commonly referred to as **UEFA Euro 2020** or simply **Euro 2020**, will be the 16th edition of the UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men's football championship of Europe organized by UEFA.

The tournament is scheduled to be held in 12 cities in 12 UEFA countries from 12 June to 12 July 2020. Portugal are the defending champions, having won the 2016 edition. For the first time, the video assistant referee (VAR) system will be used at the UEFA European Championship.

Former UEFA President Michel Platini has said that the tournament being hosted in several nations is a "romantic" one-off event to celebrate the 60th "birthday" of the European Championship competition. Having the largest capacity of any of the stadiums entered for the competition, Wembley Stadium in London will host the semi-finals and final for the second time, having done so before at the 1996 tournament in its former incarnation. The Stadio Olimpico in Rome will host the opening game, involving Turkey and hosts Italy.

## Bid process

While some countries had already expressed an interest in a UEFA Euro 2020 bid on 30 June 2012, at a press conference a day before the UEFA Euro 2012 Final, UEFA President Michel Platini suggested that instead of having one host country (or joint hosting by multiple countries), Euro 2020 could be spread over "12 or 13 cities" across the continent. At the time UEFA already used a similar system for the UEFA Under-17 Championship's "Elite Round" where each of the seven groups is hosted by a different country.

### Pan-European format decision

On 6 December 2012 UEFA announced that the 2020 Finals would be held in multiple cities all over Europe, to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the tournament. The selection of the host cities will not mean an automatic qualifying berth is awarded to the national team of that nation.

UEFA reasoned that the pan-European staging of the tournament was the logical decision at a time of financial difficulty across Europe. Reaction to UEFA's plan was mixed across Europe. Critics have cited the expanded format (from 31 matches featuring 16 nations to 51 featuring 24) and its associated additional costs as the decisive factor for only one nation (Turkey) having put forward a serious bid.

### Bidding venues

The final list of bids was published by UEFA on 26 April 2014, with an decision on the hosts being made by the UEFA Executive Committee on 19 September 2014. There were two bids for the Finals Package (of which one was successful, marked with blue for Semi-Finals and Final) and 19 bids for the Standard Package (of which 12 were successful, marked with green for Quarter-Finals and Group Stage, and yellow for Round of 16 and Group Stage).

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## Venues

Each city will host three group stage matches and one match in the round of 16 or quarter-finals. The match allocation for the 12 stadiums is as follows:

* **Group stage, round of 16, semi-finals, and final:** London (England)
* **Group stage and quarter-finals:** Munich (Germany), Baku (Azerbaijan), Saint Petersburg (Russia), Rome (Italy)
* **Group stage and round of 16:** Copenhagen (Denmark), Bucharest (Romania), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Dublin (Republic of Ireland), Bilbao (Spain), Budapest (Hungary), Glasgow (Scotland)

* Of the 12 selected cities, eight have never hosted a European Championship tournament game before: Baku, Saint Petersburg, Copenhagen, Bucharest, Dublin, Bilbao, Budapest and Glasgow.
* Of the 12 selected countries, seven have never hosted a Euro finals game before: Azerbaijan, Denmark, Hungary, Romania, Republic of Ireland, Russia and Scotland.
* Of the 12 selected stadia, only two have hosted a Euro finals game before: the Stadio Olimpico and the Johan Cruyff Arena. The original Wembley stadium hosted games and the final in Euro 1996, but although on the same site, this is classified as a different stadium to the current Wembley Stadium.

## Qualification

Main article: UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying stage
There is no automatic qualifying berth, and all 55 UEFA national teams, including the 13 national teams whose countries are scheduled to stage matches, must compete in the qualifiers for the 24 places at the finals tournament. As the host cities were appointed by UEFA in September 2014, before the qualifiers of UEFA Euro 2020, it is possible for the national teams from the host cities to fail to qualify for the finals tournament.

With the creation of the UEFA Nations League starting in 2018, the 2018–19 UEFA Nations League is to be linked with UEFA Euro qualifying, providing teams another chance to qualify for UEFA Euro 2020.

The main qualifying process began in March 2019, instead of immediately in September 2018 following the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and ended in November 2019. The format remains largely the same, although only 20 of the 24 spots for the finals tournament are to be decided from the main qualifying process, leaving four spots still to be decided. Following the admission of Kosovo to UEFA in May 2016, it was announced that the 55 members at the time would be drawn into 10 groups after the completion of the UEFA Nations League (six groups of five teams and four groups of six teams, with the four UEFA Nations League Final Four participants guaranteed to be drawn into groups of five teams), with the top two teams in each group qualifying. The qualifiers were played on double matchdays in March, June, September, October and November 2019.

Each Nations League division was allocated one of the four remaining UEFA Euro 2020 places. Four teams from each division which have not already qualified for the Euro finals are to compete in the play-offs for each division, to be played in March 2020. The winners of the play-offs for each division, to be decided by two one-off semi-finals (the best-ranked team vs. the fourth-best-ranked team, and the second-best-ranked team vs. the third-best-ranked team, played at home of higher ranked teams) and one one-off final (with the venue drawn in advance between the two semi-finals winners), are scheduled to join the 20 teams that have already qualified for the Euro finals.

### Qualified teams

Of the 24 teams that have qualified for the tournament, 19 are returning from the 2016 edition. Among them are Belgium and Italy, who both recorded flawless qualifying campaigns (10 wins in 10 matches), defending European champions Portugal and world champions France, with Germany also qualifying for a record 13th straight European Championship.

Finland and North Macedonia will make their European Championship debut, having never previously qualified for a major tournament. The Netherlands and Denmark returned after missing out in 2016, with the Dutch featuring in a major tournament for the first time since 2014. For the first time, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and Wales reached successive European Championship tournaments. Greece, winners in 2004, were the only former champions which failed to qualify, missing their second straight European Championship and third consecutive major tournament.

Of the twelve host countries, nine managed to qualify directly for the tournament. Hungary and Scotland qualified from the play-off - earning Scotland their first appearance at the Euros for 24 years and indeed their first international tournament since 1998, while the Republic of Ireland and Romania were eliminated in the semi-finals of the play-offs, and Azerbaijan were entirely eliminated following the qualifying group stage.

A *Italic* indicates team from one of the twelve host associations.
B **Bold** indicates champion for that year. *Italic* indicates host for that year.
C From 1960 to 1988, Russia competed as the Soviet Union, and in 1992 as CIS.
D From 1960 to 1980, the Czech Republic competed as Czechoslovakia.
E From 1972 to 1988, Germany competed as West Germany.
## Draw

The draw for the final tournament will be held on 1 December 2019. The 24 teams are drawn into six groups of four. The identity of the four play-off teams are not known at the time of the draw, and will be identified as play-off winners 1 to 4. The following principles will be applied:

* The teams are seeded in accordance with the European Qualifiers overall ranking based on their results in UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying.
* For host teams which have qualified, or may qualify through play-offs, they will be drawn into the groups based on the host city pairings.
* If both host teams within one group qualify directly for the final tournament, a draw will decide which team host their head-to-head match.
* If any of the host nations are in the qualifying play-offs, and there are groups which cannot be finalised at the time of the final tournament draw, another draw will be held after the play-offs on 1 April 2020.

### Seeding

*Note: The seeding below does not yet take into account of the possibility of clashes of host teams of the same group, which would require UEFA to readjust the seeding after all qualified and play-off teams are known.*

a Ukraine could not be drawn into the same group as Russia (Group B host). Since they also could not be drawn into any of the other four groups with Pot 1 hosts, Ukraine were assigned to Group C. Consequently, Belgium were assigned to Group B.
b Identity of the four play-off winners was unknown at the time of the draw.
c Romania (Group C host) and Hungary (Group F host) are competing in play-off Path A, and thus the winner of Path A was assigned to two groups (Group C and Group F), with the final assignment depending on the identity of the Path A winner.
d Republic of Ireland (Group E host) are competing in play-off Path B, and thus the winner of Path B was assigned to Group E.
e Path C|Scotland (Group D host) are competing in play-off Path C, and thus the winner of Path C was assigned to Group D.
f Play-off Path D is paired with Path A (which contains two hosts), and thus the winner of Path D was assigned to two groups (Group C and Group F), with the final assignment depending on the identity of the Path A winner.
The draw resulted in the following groups (teams in *italics* are play-off winners whose identity was not known at the time of the draw and will be determined in March 2020):

aTournament host which will play all three group stage matches at home.
bTournament host which will play two group stage matches at home.
## Squads

Each national team has to submit a squad of 23 players, three of whom must be goalkeepers, at least ten days before the opening match of the tournament. If a player becomes injured or ill severely enough to prevent his participation in the tournament before his team's first match, he can be replaced by another player.

## Group stage

UEFA announced the tournament schedule on 24 May 2018. The kick-off times of the group stage and round of 16 matches will be announced after the final draw.

Group winners, runners-up, and the best four third-placed teams advance to the round of 16.

Schedule
 Matchday 2
 Matchday 3

*Times are CEST (UTC+2), as listed by UEFA. If the venue is located in a different time zone, the local time is also given.*

### Tiebreakers

If two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following tie-breaking criteria are applied:

1. Higher number of points obtained in the matches played between the teams in question;
2. Superior goal difference resulting from the matches played between the teams in question;
3. Higher number of goals scored in the matches played between the teams in question;
4. If, after having applied criteria 1 to 3, teams still have an equal ranking (e.g. if criteria 1 to 3 are applied to three teams that are level on points initially and these criteria separated one team from the other two who still have an equal ranking), criteria 1 to 3 are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the teams who are still level to determine their final rankings. If this procedure did not lead to a decision, criteria 5 to 10 apply;
5. Superior goal difference in all group matches;
6. Higher number of goals scored in all group matches;
7. Higher number of wins in all group matches;
8. If on the last round of the group stage, two teams are facing each other and each has the same number of points, as well as the same number of goals scored and conceded, and the score finishes level in their match, their ranking is determined by a penalty shoot-out. (This criterion is not used if more than two teams are tied.);
9. Fair play conduct (1 point for a single yellow card, 3 points for a red card as a consequence of two yellow cards, 3 points for a direct red card);
10. Position in the European Qualifiers overall ranking.

### Group A

Main article: UEFA Euro 2020 Group A
Template:UEFA Euro 2020 Group A table

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### Group B

Main article: UEFA Euro 2020 Group B
Template:UEFA Euro 2020 Group B table

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### Group C

Main article: UEFA Euro 2020 Group C
Template:UEFA Euro 2020 Group C table

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### Group D

Main article: UEFA Euro 2020 Group D
Template:UEFA Euro 2020 Group D table

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### Group E

Main article: UEFA Euro 2020 Group E
Template:UEFA Euro 2020 Group E table

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### Group F

Main article: UEFA Euro 2020 Group F
Template:UEFA Euro 2020 Group F table

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### Ranking of third-placed teams

Template:UEFA Euro 2020 third-placed table

## Knockout phase

In the knockout phase, if a match is level at the end of normal playing time, extra time is played (two periods of 15 minutes each), where each team is allowed to make a fourth substitution. If still tied after extra time, the match is decided by a penalty shoot-out to determine the winners.

As with every tournament since UEFA Euro 1984, there is no third place play-off.

The specific match-ups involving the third-placed teams depend on which four third-placed teams qualified for the round of 16:

*Times are CEST (UTC+2), as listed by UEFA. If the venue is located in a different time zone, the local time is also given.*

### Round of 16

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## Quarter-finals

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## Semi-finals

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## Prize money

The prize money was finalised in February 2018. Each team receives a participation fee of €9.25 million, with the winner able to earn a maximum of €34M.

## External links

* UEFA Euro 2020 – Information at Union of European Football Associations

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