Bilbao is excluded from the list of cities hosting the European Championship matches. This decision, as the city authorities reported, UEFA was adopted, which officially informed them.
In the near future there will be an official statement of UEFA. The reason is the impossibility to guarantee attendance of the San Mames stadium due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Bilbao was to take three matches of the group “E” with the participation of the Spanish national team against Sweden, Poland and Slovakia. In addition, one meeting of the 1/8 finals was planned in Bilbao. Now UEFA will have to urgently repaint the calendar and look for Bilbao replacement.
The city authorities believe that UEFA and the Royal Football Federation of Spain (RFEF) must justify their decision to deprive Bilbao Match Euro-2020.
Bilbao is one of the three cities who have not provided UEFA guarantees to the audience to the stadium during the European Championship matches. In addition to the Spanish city, such guarantees have not yet provided Dublin and Munich. Interestingly, the three remaining match of the group “E” should be held in Dublin.
“We are subject to UEFA and RFEF responsibility for the income of this sporting event and one-sided termination of our contractual relations, as well as for the necessary financial compensation for this reason. They will have to justify their decision, the Bilbao city authorities say. In one of the UEFA messages, we did not find any argument – sports, social or economic, and especially associated with public health, control and measures to prevent the proliferation of coronavirus.
We believe that we did not give a convincing explanation. It is simply not. In UEFA, they know it well, and for this reason, they tried all these days to prevent us from submitting to them. The agreement between us and UEFA is already in the legal service of our headquarters for studying and evaluating the compensation of the amount invested on the implementation, which today is more than 1.2 million euros, as well as possible losses caused by this decision. “
Euro 2020 matches should go from June 11 to July 11 in several European cities, including Baku, which will take three matches of the group “A” with the participation of Turkey, Switzerland and Wales, as well as one quarterfinal.