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Full name | Eurostadium |
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Location | Grimbergen, Belgium |
Capacity | 62,613 |
Construction | |
Built | Cancelled in January 2018 |
Tenants | |
Belgium national football team |
Eurostadium was a proposed stadium in Grimbergen, Belgium, just north of Brussels. It would have had a capacity of 62,613. [1] In June 2015, the building deadline was set for 2019. [2] It would have hosted matches for UEFA Euro 2020, [3] and would have become the home ground of the Belgium national football team. [4]
The initial plans intended for it to be the home ground of RSC Anderlecht as well, but they withdrew from the project in an early stage. [2] In contrast to the current stadium on the Heysel/Heizel Plateau, the King Baudouin Stadium, it would no longer contain an athletics track. [5]
In March 2015, the City of Brussels council chose the Ghelamco/BAM Consortium as best candidate to finance, build and exploit the stadium. [6] During the years that followed, however, the project was plagued by numerous political delays. [7] [8] Anderlecht eventually pulled out of the project in February 2017. [9]
Because of the delays, concerns rose that the stadium would not be built in time for Euro 2020, or even at all. [10] On 7 December 2017, the UEFA Executive Committee decided, due to these delays and the uncertainty that the stadium would be completed in time, to remove Brussels as a host city for Euro 2020. The games scheduled to be held there were instead awarded to Wembley Stadium in London, which meant that London would now host a total of seven matches (this increased to eight during the actual tournament, following the removal of Dublin as a host due to sanitary issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic). [11] [12] [13] [14]
On 30 January 2018, Flemish Minister Joke Schauvliege rejected the application from Ghelamco for an environmental permit, and as a result, the project was cancelled. [15]