UEFA ‘No’ to San Siro staging soccer spectacle

Image: Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, D7ckon, CC BY-SA 4.0

The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has reopened the bidding process to stage the 2027 Champions League Final after stripping Milan’s (Italy) San Siro Stadium of the hosting rights.

‘ESPN’ stated that the San Siro Stadium, the home ground of the Serie A teams AC Milan and Inter Milan, last staged the Champions League Final in 2016 when the LaLiga team Real Madrid CF (Spain) defeated their peer team Atlético Madrid following a penalty shoot-out.

Nyon (Switzerland)-based the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach football in Europe and the transcontinental countries of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Kazakhstan, as well as the West Asian countries of Cyprus, Armenia and Israel. The UEFA consists of 55 national association members. Since 2022, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the FIFA and UEFA has suspended all Russian national teams and clubs from any FIFA and UEFA competitions.

The UEFA Champions League is an annual club association football competition organized by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by the top-division European clubs.

The 2027 UEFA Champions League Final will be the final match of the 2026-2027 UEFA Champions League, the 72nd season of Europe’s premier club football tournament organized by the UEFA and the 35th season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs’ Cup to the UEFA Champions League.

The San Siro Stadium (officially the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza) is a football stadium in the San Siro district of Milan, Italy. It has a seating capacity of 80,018 making it the largest stadium in Italy and one of the largest stadiums in Europe. It is the home stadium of the City’s principal professional football clubs AC Milan and Inter Milan who share an intense rivalry.

‘ESPN’ further stated that the UEFA announced Milan as the 2027 Host City in May this year at the same time as confirming the 67,215-capacity Puskás Aréna in Budapest, Hungary, as the venue for the 2026 Champions League Final.

But despite confirming Milan as the 2027 venue the UEFA did so on the proviso that the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) submitted information on the plans for the multimillion pound refurbishment of the San Siro Stadium.

The Italian Football Federation (FIGC), known colloquially as Federcalcio, is the governing body of football in Italy. It is based in Rome and the Technical Department is in Coverciano, Florence. It manages and coordinates the Italian football league system.

Those plans remain uncertain with both Milan and Inter considering moving out of the San Siro, officially named the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, due to an ongoing battle to secure funding for the renovation of the existing stadium.

If funds cannot be secured, the 80,018-capacity San Siro Stadium, which opened in 1926, could be demolished.

And with the future of the stadium still shrouded in doubt, the UEFA has announced that it will now seek a new host venue for the 2027 Champions League Final.

A UEFA statement read, “As the Municipality of Milano could not guarantee that the San Siro Stadium and its surroundings would not be affected by the refurbishment works in the period of the 2027 UEFA Champions League Final, it was decided not to assign the final to Milan and to reopen the bidding process to appoint a suitable venue with a decision expected in May/June 2025.”

Munich’s (Germany) 75,024-capacity Allianz Arena will host the 2025 Champions League Final on May 31^st but with only Budapest and Milan submitting bids to host the 2026 and 2027 Finals when the bidding process opened in July 2023, a source stated that the UEFA will now seek expressions of interest from Cities that originally chose not to bid for the 2027 Champions League Final.

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