UEFA seems to have liked the expansion of the European Championship. The Associated Press reports that the European Football Association – on the final day of the second European Championship with 24 participants – wants to expand the tournament even further.
The 2016 European Championship was the first European Championship with 24 countries, instead of sixteen. There will be an equal number of participants at Euro 2024 in Germany, but UEFA seems to be planning to scale up to 32 participating countries after that, just as is the case under the current World Cup format.
The 2028 European Championship has not yet been assigned to a host country, but UEFA may already allow eight additional participants. The AP, which invokes ‘people with knowledge of the process’, suggests that this may have implications for the qualification process. It cannot be ruled out that the regular qualifying series will make way for the Nations League format, which was successfully introduced to international football in the autumn of 2018.
If the field of participants is indeed expanded to 32 teams, there will be more UEFA countries present than are absent at the European Championship. After all, the European Football Association has 55 member states.
