England, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales will all co-host the 2028 UEFA European Football Championship. Originally, there were to be ten host locations, but now there will only be nine.
The host stadiums for the bid for Euro 2028 have now been confirmed as of April 2025. They are: Principality Stadium (Cardiff), Etihad Stadium (Manchester), Everton Stadium (Liverpool), St. James’ Park (Newcastle), Villa Park (Birmingham), Hampden Park (Glasgow), Wembley (London), and Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (London).
Although Northern Ireland was first considered, with Belfast’s Casement Park mentioned in the plan, England, Wales, Scotland, and the Republic of Ireland are all represented as host countries. The 34,500-seater has subsequently been dropped as a viable possibility, though.
Full List of EURO 2028 Stadiums
Name of the Stadium
Where
Capacity
The Wembley Stadium
England’s London
90,000.
The Principality Stadium
Cardiff, Wales
74.500
Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
England’s London
62.850
Stadium in Etihad
England’s Manchester
53.400
The Everton Stadium
England’s Liverpool
53,000
Park in Hampden
Scotland’s Glasgow
52.000
St. James’ Park
England’s Newcastle
52.000
The Aviva Stadium
Ireland’s Dublin
51.700
Villa Park
England’s Birmingham
42.640
Why Euro 2028 Won’t Take Place in Casement Park
The expense of redeveloping is very high.
The Antrim GAA has called Casement Park home since it initially opened as a Gaelic games arena in 1953. Unfortunately, though, no athletic event has been held there since June 2013.
Actually, before Euro 2028 was taken into consideration, plans to begin construction of a new stadium there existed since 2011. That was expected to cost £76 million, of which £61 million came from the power-sharing government in Northern Ireland and £15 million from the GAA. However, the ground’s owner, the GAA, is determined it won’t make any more contributions after expenses skyrocketed.
The estimated cost to finish the project (with government funding) was £180 million when it was announced as the host of Euro 2028, but it quickly increased to possibly above £400 million.
As a result, raising Casement Park to UEFA standards will just be too expensive. Later, in a letter to Gordon Lyons, the Communities Minister for Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn and Sports Minister Lisa Nandy wrote:
“The estimated build costs have risen dramatically – from £180m when the EURO 2028 bid was awarded in October 2023 to potentially over £400m – and there is a significant risk that it would not be built in time for the tournament,”
“We have therefore, regrettably, decided that it is not appropriate for the UK government to provide funding to seek to build Casement Park in time to host matches at EURO 2028.”
Windsor Park, the football stadium in Northern Ireland, can accommodate 18,500 spectators, but UEFA mandates that all European Championship venues have a capacity of at least 30,000. And so, with Casement Park off the cards, Northern Ireland will not get to host any of the tournament football matches that summer.
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