Salmond backs bid to host Euro 2016

[clyde built]

You could get away with useing the three Glasgow Stadiums, just as long as its on diffrent day. Is it not genaraly spread out acrros a country so that the econimic boost is shared out amoungst the poulation were as most of scotlands poulation stay in the central belt? Also think if we won this and get the comenwealth games Hampden will be flated and rebuilt! ala Germanys 2006 bid stadia and the ones eventaly used, this would be better for both events as you could leave the ends or one end of Hampden open for the runing track then build a square stadium instead of oval for football like manchester did.

I would use these stadiums

Ibrox
Hampden
Murryfield
Tynecastle
Aberdeen (new one)
Dundee (new city stadium)
Falkirk Tempory expanded
ICT Tempory expanded
parkhead
Rugby park if needed.

[cinosanap]

Temporary stands are the best option for the likes of Dundee, Inverness etc.

It would also be a good excuse to upgrade Hampden. Hampden should be in the bid as UEFA love the place.

Ibrox should be used as it is five star but if Parkhead gets 5 stars and is larger then that should be used. Both would be great if possible.

Murrayfield is obvious, aswell as the redeveloped Tynecastle and Pittodrie.

The thing is: why can Poland and Ukraine build massive, fancy, expensive stadium when we would most likely get shit. Pushing the EU for funding is a must!

[Snudge]

The bid show include all 3 of Glasgow's stadiums, there aren't many cities in the world where football is so important, hence the 3 large stadiums, and we should use that as a possitive in any application to the host the games. The rules can be bent/overlooked if we produce a good enough bid. Building larger stadiums in parts of the country that can't sustain them is crazy.

[asdfg]

Yes, but the problem is due to safety/security issues.

Only Glasgow or Edinburgh could cope with England and Scotland and they would have to be separated. Germany would bring a massive following over here. France, Spain and Italy would also bring over substantial supports.

The English, German and Dutch fans would be high risk and would need to be separated.

Scotland's problem is that we only have two real cities. Scotland would end up with a high risk country (in terms of trouble) sharing a city with another large support - e.g. England and Italy sharing Glasgow, throw another small country in the mix and you've got a recipe for some real trouble.

Even the airports could be problematic, with the vast majority of fans from all countries coming through GLA and EDI.

I would imagine the safest possible match configuration in Scotland would be significantly higher risk than it would be with many other countries/bids.

Typical Salmond pie-in-the-sky stuff if you ask me.

[M_Riaz]

Apparently this was supposed to be a joint bid with Wales The Times reports.

Times

SFA dampens speculation of joint Euro 2016 bid with Wales

The Scottish Football Association (SFA) yesterday sought to dampen speculation that Scotland are ready to join forces with Wales to make a joint bid to host the European Championships in 2016. One top official from the Football Association of Welsh (FAW) had said the idea of a Celtic partnership was being floated with in Scotland but that claim was rejected by the SFA.

[Boards]

We stand a much stronger chance with Wales. I wonder if Euro 2008 would have been different if we'd tried to persuade Wales rather than the Republc?

Possiblity of four stadia from Wales. All in all a much more rounded plausible bid that I think could possibly gain favour from UEFA.



Wales eye joint Scotland Euro bid

FAW secretary David Collins hopes to gain support from Scotland
The Football Association of Wales will hold talks with Scotland on a joint bid to host the 2016 Euro Championships.
Uefa, European football's governing body, had encouraged Wales to enter a joint bid with Scotland and Ireland.

Former Scottish FA chief executive David Taylor had ruled out a triple bid from the Celtic nations, but a proposal with one partner may yet be considered.

FAW secretary David Collins said: "At this moment in time we are floating the idea with Scotland."

Wales are encouraged by Wednesday's decision to give the Euro 2012 tournament to Poland and the Ukraine at a meeting which was held in Cardiff.

"It's raised the issue for us that there's the possibility of Wales and Scotland getting together to make a joint bid," Collins told BBC Wales.

"We will start talking with the Scottish FA to see if they feel they could join with us and hopefully in the next few months we will have a clearer idea.

"Then we could get the Scottish parliament and the Welsh assembly government to see if we could move forward to put a bid together."

Collins has been considering a potential joint bid with Scotland for some time, after telling told BBC Sport last December that he was exploring such a move and then outlining further plans last month.

A bid to host the 2008 European Championship finals was abandoned in 2002 when Scotland instead chose to partner the Republic of Ireland, only to be unsuccessful.

All bids must have eight stadiums with at least 30,000 seats and Wales were hampered by having just one stadium that met Uefa's guidelines - the 74,500-seater Millennium Stadium.

That could change with the planned new stadium for Cardiff City, and Collins says the FAW will look into the possibility of developing Swansea's Liberty Stadium and Wrexham's Racecourse Ground.

That would give Wales the necessary four stadia to pull their weight with the Scots, who boast a number of top grounds including Hampden Park, Celtic Park, Ibrox and Murrayfield.

However, Uefa is looking at the possibility of expanding the finals to include 24 rather than the current 16 teams, which could require further stadia.

Taylor ended his spell as the SFA chief at the beginning of April to take up the post of Uefa general secretary.

An SFA spokesman responded to Collins' comments by saying: "We have had no formal approach from the Welsh FA."

[Boards]

By the way, the big guns are looking lively in the bid to host Euro 2016. France has already officially declared they are bidding and there is strong interest from Italy ( who lost out in this weeks decision - cant see a footballing super power thats previously held the world cup and is one of Europe's biggies being knocked back time after time ), then theres Spain and England giving it serious thought. Russia are also interested.

[M_Riaz]

Originally Posted by Boards

Russia are also interested

Russia in Europe????

European Russia

[Boards]

They play in the European sections of the Euro and World Cup qualifiers ( as do far flung places like Armenia, Azerbaijan other former Soviet republics - even Kazakhstan! ) and play in the European club competitions. I was just thinking that if Russia bid and decided to include Vladivostock as a host city whether it would be allowed.

[asdfg]

Originally Posted by Boards

They play in the European sections of the Euro and World Cup qualifiers ( as do far flung places like Armenia, Azerbaijan other former Soviet republics - even Kazakhstan! ) and play in the European club competitions. I was just thinking that if Russia bid and decided to include Vladivostock as a host city whether it would be allowed.

Yes, it would. Russia is a member of UEFA. That is the only criteria.

Israel is also a member of UEFA.

[milton]

Good points about the security problems.. The thing is that these problems will be the same for any small nation/joint bid of small nations. They'll either have to address these issues as best as possible and hope for the best, or accept that smaller countries are never going to get the opportunity to host..

[asdfg]

Smaller countries can only really do joint bids.

Central/eastern European countries also have a slight advantage in terms of travel because they usually have lots of land borders around them. That means that travellers have lots of options can get into countries like Belgium and Holland via France and Germany. Likewise you can easily get to Austria and Switzerland via Germany and Italy etc.

A "Celtic" bid would be VERY strong, and could genuinely rival the big countries in its own right.

Glasgow (2 great stadia... well three, but only two would be used), Edinburgh (1 great, 1 decent stadia), Cardiff (1 great, 1 good stadium), Dublin (2 great stadia) and Belfast - plus Swansea, Aberdeen, Dundee etc. This would be a cracking bid, with the fans spread out and a transport infrastructure that could easily cope. In fact, a Celtic bid could be in with a shout of hosting the World Cup.

[milton]

Is there not the difficulty though that host nations automatically qualify? I don't know if they'd want to admit 3 countries that way..

[Boards]

Nae chance of more than two countries jointly bidding.

[M_Riaz]

Some of the present and previous figures from the city seems certainly be able for the security point of view.

[asdfg]

Originally Posted by milton

Is there not the difficulty though that host nations automatically qualify? I don't know if they'd want to admit 3 countries that way..

Four countries, and good point.

Although for the European Championships there is a suggestion that it will expand from 16 teams to 24 at some point. This would almost certainly need to be implemented for such a bid to work.

The World Cup has 32 teams in it with no suggestion of that budging. Giving four automatic places to pish teams like Scotland, Ireland, NI and Wales would probably scupper any hope of a successful bid.

[M_Riaz]

SFA in talks over bid for Euro 2016

The Scottish Football Association is to hold talks with the Scottish Executive after it backed Scotland making a solo bid to host the 2016 European Championships.

A spokesman for the SFA said it was "absolutely delighted" at winning support for a potential bid, although officials said it was too early to say if the nation would seek to stage the tournament.

Plans to launch a solo Scottish bid to host the 2008 championships were ditched because of the lack of suitable stadiums in the country.

[Boards]

If Scotland are planning a solo bid then they might as well not bother. They are unlikely to be allowed three stadiums in Glasgow and living in Kilmarnock I know the place simply isn't capable of being the home base for a couple of teams, the hotel provision simply isn't here. Joint bid with Wales is the only viable option.

[gorgu]

Originally Posted by Boards

If Scotland are planning a solo bid then they might as well not bother. They are unlikely to be allowed three stadiums in Glasgow and living in Kilmarnock I know the place simply isn't capable of being the home base for a couple of teams, the hotel provision simply isn't here. Joint bid with Wales is the only viable option.

That is absolute rubbish:

The following should be the bid proposal 1:

Ibrox and Hampden (Unless Parkhead is upgraded and then it would be Celtic Park and Hampden and Hampden should have the North Stand Upgraded to be the same as the south Stand)
Murrayfield and Redeveloped Hibs (Tynecastle is too close to Murrayfield)
Dundee (New Stadium for both teams)
Aberdeen (New Stadium that will be used for Football matches and international rugby matches, like the ones noone in Edinburgh wants to go to)
Inverness (New Multi Purpose Facility that is regional centre of sporting excellence, also has all of the Aviemore hotels for fans to stay in)
Kilmarnock (Remember that Ayr is nearby with the hotels that service Troon and Turnberry for the Open)

Games spread throughout the country

QF in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen
SF in Glasgow Edinburgh
F in Glasgow at a 60000 all seater Hampden that has the North Stand redeveloped.

If the following is unsuitable because UEFA insist on not allowing more than one city to have two staid then the following should happen:

Bulldoze both Hampden (after Commonwealth games) and Murrayfield, sell the land to developers and build a stadium ALBA (80000, covered stadium) beneath Stirling Castle, which becomes the official sport campus for Scotland, housing ALL elite sports facilities for Scotland, including:

• 80000 all seater for both Rugby and Football (and a world athletics championships bid)
• 50 metre swimming pool (for world swimming championships)
• Hockey, Curling, Cycling, Shinty and Diving facilities

So then you have:

Stadium Alba (Stirling)
Ibrox
Parkhead
Dundee – New Stadium
Aberdeen – New Stadiium
Hibs or Hearts (Whichever one is bigger at the time)
Inverness (New Multi Purpose Facility that is regional centre of sporting excellence, also has all of the Aviemore hotels for fans to stay in)
Kilmarnock (Remember that Ayr is nearby with the hotels that service Troon and Turnberry for the Open)

Games spread throughout the country

QF in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling, Aberdeen
SF in Glasgow Edinburgh
F in Stirling

Eight stadia, Scotland’s sporting infrastructure secure for the next 100 years and a reason for us to be proud of the nation we are!

I reckon the above would cost about a billion to build (no expensive Wembley overruns as the land in Stirling would be cheap)

[asdfg]

The Scottish Executive should build new stadia in Wick (30,000), Oban (60,000), Fort William (40,000), St. Andrews (80,000) and Peebles (35,000), plus we would have the two Glasgow stadiums (upgraded to 85,000) and Murrayfield (upgraded to 750,000... oops an extra zero... ach it there now, might as well leave it).

They might as well build an international air hub in Fort William while they're at it to get all the supporters into the country.

So there we have it. Supporters spread throughout the country, and if they bulldoze the Scottish Parliament, Glasgow City Chambers and Edinburgh Castle and sell the land they should be able to pay for it no bother.