UEFA Euro 2016 (European Football Championship)
10 June to 10 July 2016
The 2016 UEFA European Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2016 or simply Euro 2016, will be the 15th edition of the UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men's football championship of Europe organized by UEFA.
- It is scheduled to be held in France from 10 June to 10 July 2016. Spain are two-time defending champions.
- For the first time, the European Championship final tournament will be contested by 24 teams, having been expanded from the 16-team format used since 1996. Under this new format, the finalists will contest a group stage consisting of six groups of four teams, followed by a knockout stage including three rounds and the final.
- 19 teams (the top two from each of the nine qualifying groups and the best third-placed team) joined France who qualified automatically as hosts; a series of two-legged play-off ties between the remaining third-placed teams in November 2015 decided the last four spots at the final tournament.
- France was chosen as the host nation on 28 May 2010, after a bidding process in which they beat Italy and Turkey for the right to host the 2016 finals.
The Matches will be played in ten Stadia in ten Cities:
Bordeaux, Lens, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Paris,Saint-Denis, Saint-Étienne, and Toulouse. It will be the third time that France hosts the tournament, after the inaugural tournament in 1960 and the 1984 finals.
The French team have won the European Championship twice: in 1984 and 2000. The winning team earns the right to compete at the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup hosted by Russia.
UEFA EURO 2016 Competition Format
For the first time, 24 teams will particpate at a EURO final tournament following a qualifying campaign played under the new 'Week of Football' concept.
For the first time, 24 teams will particpate at a EURO final tournament following a qualifying campaign played under the new 'Week of Football' concept.
Contested every four years, the UEFA European Championship has been showcasing the continent's top talent since its inception as the UEFA European Nations Cup in 1960. It consists of a qualifying competition, play-offs and a final tournament.
The Henri Delaunay Cup
The second version of the trophy is based on the original designed by the Arthus-Bertrand company in 1960 and named after Henri Delaunay, the former president of the French Football Federation (FFF) and UEFA's first general secretary, from the body's founding on 15 June 1954 to 9 November 1955.