Euro 2028 is coming to Northern Ireland

Great celebrations in Northern Ireland recently as the media fawned and delighted in the news that Euro 2028 was coming to our shores.

No you didn’t see Belfast in the announcements of host cities but Euro 2028 is coming to us.

While the Northern Ireland team Instagram account put out a celebratory video telling us how much football means to us as a people and how deserving we are of this opportunity you could be forgiven for thinking you’d missed something.

But, Euro 2028 is coming to us.

When the announcement for tournament hosts was initially made, our name was mentioned.

England, Scotland Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland were all to be hosts. How does that work with hosts automatically qualifying well…that was someone else’s problem. We were on our way to steal from the popular chant.

This was huge, there was real excitement and then……. talk turned to venues.

Windsor Park wasn’t big enough. There’s a minimum seating requirement to be tackled. We didn’t have a ground big enough to host a group game. So what now?

The solution…..Casement Park. A GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) ground left derelict over the years, that could be repurposed for the GAA, become their standout ground in the North allowing games to be return to those fans and provide appropriate facilities for the Euro 2008 games.

Think of the vibes, think of the economic boost, think of the pageantry of being a host city. We were back in the chat!

Nothing is ever that straight forward here though.

Some sections of fans didn’t a Northern Ireland game in a GAA ground in traditionally Republican West Belfast. Things have to pass a certain type of litmus test here. Despite the benefits it’s never really simple to get everyone singing from the same hymn sheet.

The GAA however welcomed the opportunity and as an organisation once proponents of ‘no foreign game’ this in itself was welcome news and showed where resistance was coming from.

While the politicians stated their cases for and against and the press ramped things up with excitement for what might be, there was still funding to be discussed.

Funding for the project was supposed to come from different channels, the GAA, as well as the Irish and British governments. Enquiries continued on TV and radio as to what the cost would be. What would inflation mean to the costs that were once talked about for this redevelopment? How would the Glider (our not so bendy bus that travels East to West of Belfast) cope with streams of fans coming for this festival of football?

However Britain declared they were out and no pennies remained in their pockets that could help fund this project and so the ground remains derelict, the tools are down and no games for any of the relevant fanbases will be played in casement for the foreseeable.

After all that though, lets not forget, Euro 2028 is coming to Northern Ireland.

There’s history, there’s politics, there’s identity, even economics all in the mix of this debacle.

This is not the forum for any of that.

This is a place for football fans. So I’m going to keep myself as close to that perspective as I can.

You see the celebrations this week are not for group games, we are not hosting any fixtures.

Our pubs will not be filled with football fans from across Europe. Our hotels will have no football tourists over the tournament dates.

We are celebrating…hosting the draw!!

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That’s right our media, our official team Instagram account is excited about…the draw. The part of a tournament, that while setting the ball rolling, is never talked about once it’s over.

We are your official hosts of the draw. Where two people (possibly more) will do the tournament admin for everyone else hosting. Everyone else whose pubs and hotels will see booking shoot up.

Northern Ireland won’t qualify as hosts. We may not even qualify for the tournament. If we do games will more than likely be in…Dublin. Where other group games will be played. Where a quarter final will be played.

Euro 2028 is coming, down the road two hours away.

A car journey.

A train or bus ride away.

I hope to be there even if my team is not because I’m a football fan.

Just don’t ask (or expect) me to get excited about doing other people’s admin. I get enough of that at work.