UEFA backtrack on major change to EURO 2024 in latest announcement
Football’s governing body in Europe, UEFA, have today announced that the EUROS in 2024 will consist of 24 teams and will not be increased to the planned 32 for the tournament.
The tournament in 2024 is set to take place in Germany and according to Martyn Ziegler of the Times, the plan to have 32 teams compete in the competition have been ditched and it will remain in its current format of 24 countries.
Instead, UEFA announced that they have expanded the Nations League with a new knock-out quarter-final round and smaller groups (four or five) have been implemented for World Cup and Euro qualifying in the future.
UEFA officially confirms men's Euros will remain at 24 teams – as reported in Sept, plan to increase to 32 has been finally ditched.
— Martyn Ziegler (@martynziegler) January 25, 2023
UEFA already increased the number of teams at the EUROS in 2016, upping the total of countries from 16 to 24, and the latest decision to step away from the 32-team format could be seen as a wise one, following the backlash FIFA got from fans after increasing the amount of countries at the next World Cup to 48.
EURO 2024 is set to begin on 14 June 2024 with qualifying for the tournament getting underway in March of this year.
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