‘Historic day’ as Euro 20 dream becomes a reality

FAI chief executive John Delaney has described the success of Dublin’s bid to host games at the Euro 2020 finals as "a holy grail" for Irish football.

“It’s an historic day,” he said, speaking after yesterday’s announcement by Uefa in Geneva. “We’ve achieved a holy grail, really, that I think, in the past, people would have felt we couldn’t achieve. And, as an Irishman, I’m just over the moon about it.”

Although he said the FAI were honoured to be selected as one of the 13 host associations for the pan-European finals in six years’ time, he was at pains to stress the collective nature of the Irish bid.

“It really was a national bid, with different agencies pulling on the green jersey,” he said.” It’s not just about the FAI. We couldn’t have done it without the support of (Ministers) Michael Ring and Leo Varadkar, and Dublin City Council under Owen Keegan, the security guys, the Garda Síochána, Dublin Airport. We couldn’t have done it on our own and there was a great sense of pride and relief.

“We had a great technical bid under (Project Director) Declan Conroy. We were the third best technical bid of all the bids, behind Munich and London, and that’s tremendous.

“We had a good degree of confidence going in but when Dublin comes out and you see the name Dublin there in front of the whole of Europe, maybe the whole of the world, it’s a wonderful, wonderful feeling.”

For all the confidence of the Irish delegation, there remained a tiny sliver of doubt about their prospects right up until Uefa president Michel Platini announced the winners.

“The technical bid being so good was a huge positive so there was no reason not to give it to us,” said Delaney.

“I’m around UEFA ten or 12 years and I know all the key characters who were going to vote. I’d been speaking to them one on one in Monaco explaining why they should give it to Dublin and, again, the previous night, I’d looked a lot of them in the eye, and you really felt with a high degree of confidence that we were in a great position. But, you never know. As Trapattoni would say, ‘the cat wasn’t in the sack’ (laughs), so to see Dublin coming out was great.”

Sports Minister Michael Ring, who was also in Geneva yesterday, quoted a Dublin Chamber of Commerce estimate that securing the four games – one round of 16 and three group fixtures – would be worth at least €50 million to the economy, but both he and John Delaney also pointed out that revenue will be partly dictated by the teams who end up playing their matches here.

“It’ll be worth tens of millions to the city,” reckoned the FAI boss.

“But we’ll see what countries get to play in Dublin.

“There’s a chance it could even be England, since they won’t be hosting a group.

“So were England to qualify, they could be housed in Dublin or Glasgow. From our point of view, were we to qualify, two of our home games would be in Dublin.”

In that event, of course, national pride would presumably be offset by a drop in revenue?

“I think we’d all take it,” Delaney chuckled, “and there’d still be two games without us in it, one group game and a round of 16 potentially as well. But there’s the little matter of 2016 first, isn’t there?”

For the FAI, hosting the Euro 2020 games will essentially be a break even affair, according to the chief executive. “It’s practically cost neutral because UEFA give a grant towards hosting it and the Government have absorbed transport and other costs which is brilliant – that’s why I talk about a national bid. So there’s no net cost to the FAI and no great financial windfall for us. What it does do, is it gives us a cachet that we wouldn’t have had in the past. And I’m sure with our ten year ticket sales and season ticket sales, people will be more encouraged to come to the Aviva now, knowing that in 2020 we’re going to host such a prestigious tournament.”

Delaney anticipates that Dublin and Glasgow will share a group at the finals.

“That would make sense,” he said. “Two Celtic nations who bid for 2008, which didn’t work out, now bonded together – that would be the ideal thing. So, in that event, we’d get a round of 16 game and they’d get a round of 16 game and you’d assume we’d share the six games in the group.”

He also expects other countries to use training facilities here.

“Absolutely, whoever’s going to play in Dublin will want to be based in Dublin, and that’s the idea behind the four training camps we’ve put in place. Definitely, there will be other nations at least based in Dublin and using those training facilities.”

One of those training bases will, he confirmed, be Carton House. Another will be the one currently under construction beside the FAI headquarters at the National Sports Campus. “Our six pitches will be used as a training facility and they’ll be complete by this December and ready for usage in April or May of next year,” he said. “Abbotstown is the realisation of our dream. People said we’d never have an academy and we’re going to have that in operation next year. And again, it’s the ability to do that, having got funding from the government and moving out to Abbotstown, these are all pieces of the jigsaw which have made this (Euro 2020 bid) possible.”