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Euro Championships to Expand

Written by Adeleke Afolayan

Saturday, 27 September 2008

The European Championships, Europe's version of the African Cup of Nations, will expand to 24 teams from the current 16 from the 2016 edition after a UEFA Executive Committee meeting.

The proposal to expand the competition was brought forward by the Scotland and Irish Football Associations last year and its ascent will see less countries having the opportunity to host the event held once in four years.

It means the European Championships of 2012 to be co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine will be the last of the Championship to witness 16 participating countries.

The new format according to stakeholders will allow for a more exciting competition, stressing that it was not done to allow Scotland and Ireland a better chance of making the competition or England that did not make the last European Championship in Austria and Switzerland.

Also, the UEFA Cup; Europe's second biggest club competition behind the Champions League, will be replaced by the UEFA Europa League from the 2009/10 season.

The Europa League will see the Intertoto Cup; a back door into the UEFA Cup, scrapped to allow for an extended format that will see a group stage of 12 groups consisting of four teams each. The winners and runners-up of these dozen groups will then proceed to the knock-out round, joined by eight third placed teams from the Champions League group stage.

The current UEFA Cup is a merge of the old UEFA Cup and the now defunct Cup Winners Cup while the Europa League will allow for better opportunities for prominence with the packages proposed for the competition including television rights.

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