The UEFA Euro 2016 in France will be played at ten venues. Compared
to the last international football tournament in France – the FIFA World Cup in 1998 – only two venues have changed:
Nantes and Montpellier will not be hosting games, therefore Nice and Lille were
chosen as venues.
Originally, only nine Stadiums were supposed to be used as
venues for the UEFA Euro 2016. Seven of these were indisputed:
- Stade de France (Saint-Denis), being France’s national stadium
- Lille, Lyon, Nice, Bordeaux, because those stadiums were newly built
- Paris & Marseille, representing France’s biggest cities
The remaining two venues were voted for out of four applicants, and
Lens and Nancy were chosen instead of Saint-Étienne and Toulouse which were
supposed to be the reserve stadiums.
The number was increased from nine to eleven when the UEFA announced in 2008
that it will expand the tournament mode by increasing the number of
participating national teams from 16 to 24. Following the announcement, the
former reserve venues in Saint-Étienne and Toulouse were added to the official
list of venues.
The final change to the list of venues came in December 2011, when the planned expansion of the Stade Marcel-Picot in Nancy from 20,087 seats to over 30,000 seats encountered funding difficulties, resulting in the city of Nancy withdrawing their venue application.
Following Nancy’s withdraw, the following ten stadiums will serve as venues for the UEFA EURO 2016:
- Saint-Denis - Stade de France
- Paris - Parc des Princes
- Lens - Stade Bollaert-Delelis
- Saint-Étienne - Stade Geoffroy-Guichard
- Toulouse - Stadium Municipal
- Nice - Stade de Nice
- Bordeaux - Nouveau Stade de Bordeaux
- Lille (Villeneuve-d’Ascq) - Stade Pierre-Mauroy
- Lyon (Decines-Charpieu) - Parc Olympique Lyonnais
- Marseille - Stade Vélodrome
Over the weekend we will be providing you with all the necessary information you need about the UEFA Euro 2016 venues, so make sure to visit our blog!
