The next Euros will take place in 2028 and are being hosted by the UK and Ireland. The footballing festivities will take place over one month, from June 9th, 2028, until July 9th, 2028. Nine cities across the hosting nations of Wales, England, Scotland, and Ireland have been chosen to host matches across the competition. Earlier this month, UEFA announced that Cardiff, Wales’ only city included, will have the responsibility of hosting the opening match of the competition, on June 9th. The opening match will contain two teams from Group A, one of which is likely to be a host nation. One would imagine that providing Craig Bellamy’s side qualify, the opening match should involve Wales.
On the topic of participating host nations, unlike the usual protocol whereby the host nation of an international football competition automatically qualifies for the tournament, for 2028, UEFA have decided that automatically qualifying all four host nations is unreasonable and unfair for all other European nations. As a solution to this, Wales, England, Scotland, and Ireland will go through group stage qualifying prior to the start of the tournament as per usual; but UEFA have reserved two qualification spots for the best-performing host nations that do not qualify via the group stage. Consequently, from a Welsh perspective, if we do not qualify in the groups and if any two from the three other host nations qualify, we will automatically qualify due to the reserved spots from UEFA.
Cardiff’s selected venue is, of course, what is currently known as the Principality Stadium, which is situated right in the heart of Cardiff city centre and boasts a capacity of nearly 75,000 seats. That said, the stadium will be having a name change prior to hosting Euro 2028 and will be renamed the National Stadium of Wales. The stadium itself was initially built in 1999 and opened in a celebratory commemoration to the turn of the new millennium. Since its opening, the stadium has been home to the Welsh Rugby Union of which Wales Men’s rugby fixtures. It has also hosted both the FA Cup and League Cup finals, whilst the new Wembley Stadium was under construction in the early 2000s, as well as the Champions League final in 2017, which saw Real Madrid smash Juventus 4–1.