Germany to host Euro 2024 after seeing off Turkey bid

Germany will host the Euro 2024 tournament after beating Turkey in a vote by Uefa’s executive committee on Thursday.

Berlin’s Olympic stadium will be the setting for the final of the 24-team, 32-day competition, with Cologne, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg, Leipzig, Munich and Stuttgart making up the other cities set to be used for matches.

Germany hosted the 2006 World Cup but this will be its first European Championship as a unified country, with West Germany having staged the 1988 edition.

"We have amazing stadiums, fans who love football, first and foremost we have people who love celebrating with other Europeans," said World Cup winning captain Philipp Lahm, an ambassador for the bid. "We will organise a huge football party in Germany."

Germany had failed in bids for the 2008, 2012 and 2016 editions, as well as falling short in a bid for the 2020 Olympics.

On the other hand, Turkey has never hosted a major football tournament before and has entered a bid for four of the last five competitions.

The nation’s bid was marked down over infrastructure issues and the poor human rights record of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s regime.