EM 2024 in Germany: the venues for the opening game and the final have been decided

🗓️ The @EURO2024 match schedule has been finalised.

🇩🇪 14 June: Fussball Arena in Munich to host opening match.

🏟️ 14 July: Olympiastadion Berlin to stage final.

Matches in each #EURO2024 group will also reduce travel distances for teams and fans between the host cities.

– UEFA EURO 2024 (@ EURO2024) May 10, 2022

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As with the 2006 World Cup, the final of the next tournament in Germany will take place in the Berlin Olympic Stadium. This was decided by the Executive Committee of the European Football Union (UEFA) at its planning meeting on Tuesday. The capital prevailed against Munich in the battle for the German team’s dream goal on July 14, 2024. Instead, the opening game will be kicked off exactly one month before in the Allianz Arena there.

The 51 games were distributed quite evenly among the ten previously determined venues. Most matches take place in Berlin, Dortmund and Munich with six each, while Gelsenkirchen and Leipzig got the fewest games with four each. Hosts of five duels are Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Cologne and Stuttgart. The semi-finals will be played in Munich and Dortmund.

EM 2024 should be “more than a football festival”

“We want to organize a great football festival, but it should also be more than a football festival. It should really be a festival for everyone to bring people together,” said tournament director Philipp Lahm when the EM motto “United by Football” was unveiled . United in the heart of Europe”. “I’m sure that together we can create the greatest EURO ever,” added UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin.

For reasons of sustainability, the venues were divided into three clusters. The north/northeast zone includes Berlin, Hamburg and Leipzig, then the west with Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Gelsenkirchen and Cologne and the south with Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart. In each group there are only games in two clusters to reduce travel distances.

The qualifying groups will be determined on October 9th at the Messe Frankfurt, the draw for the finals will take place in December 2023 in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. As hosts, the German team is the only one of the 24 teams set for the tournament. Only in 1988 was a European championship held in the then Federal Republic of Germany, at the Europe-wide tournament in 2021 there were four games in Munich.

With the exception of Düsseldorf, all ten venues also hosted the 2006 World Cup. In September 2017, the Executive Committee of the German Football Association (DFB) selected the EM stadiums from among 14 applicants. Bremen, Hanover, Mönchengladbach and Nuremberg failed in the pre-selection. Almost exactly a year later, Germany prevailed in the award of the Exko with 12:4 votes against its only opponent Turkey.

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