UEFA commission to visit Euro 2020 host city St. Petersburg in September 2019

A next working visit of the UEFA commission to St. Petersburg, which will be among the host cities of UEFA Euro 2020, will take place in September 2019, the head of the Russia-2020 Organizing Committee, Alexei Sorokin, told TASS on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the Union of European Football Associations approved five training sites in Russia’s second biggest city of St. Petersburg for Euro 2020 teams. These are the stadiums Petrovsky and Smena, two arenas in the satellite towns of Pavlovsk and Zelenogorsk, as well as FC Zenit’s base in Udelny Park.

"Five sites have been approved tentatively, but they have not been chosen by the teams as of yet. Then the participating national teams will make their choice. They (sites) don’t need any additional work on them, they are ready," Sorokin said. "UEFA representatives have been visiting us on a regular basis, and a next, fourth visit, will be in September next year," the head of the organizing committee said.

These training sites were used during the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The Saudi Arabian national team trained at the FC Zenit base, the Costa-Rican team trained at the Olimpiyets Stadium in Pavlovsk, while the team of England used the Spartak Stadium in Zelenogorsk for its training sessions.

UEFA Euro 2020
The decision to hold the 2020 Euro Cup, which will be celebrating its 60th anniversary that year, in various European countries instead of in one or two hosting countries was made at the UEFA Executive Committee’s meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, on December 6, 2012.

The matches of Euro 2020 will be held at stadiums in cities of 12 different European countries, namely in London (England), Munich (Germany), Rome (Italy), Baku (Azerbaijan), Saint Petersburg (Russia), Bucharest (Romania), Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Dublin (Ireland), Bilbao (Spain), Budapest (Hungary), Glasgow (Scotland) and Copenhagen (Denmark).

A total of 24 national football teams will be playing in the final tournament of the 2020 Euro Cup. All 55 UEFA national member teams, including 12 teams from the hosting countries, will have to play in the qualifying matches to vie for the berth in the final 24-team lineup of the quadrennial European football championship.

It is possible that some of the national teams from the hosting countries of the 2020 Euro Cup will not be playing in home soil in case they fail to clear the qualifying stage. The Qualifying Draw for the 2020 UEFA Euro Cup is scheduled to take place at the Convention Center Dublin, Ireland, on December 2, 2018.