Turkey announces bid for Euro 2024

The European Championship could take place in a country straddling Europe and Asia.

On Wednesday, the Turkiye Futbol Federasyonu announced that Turkey is bidding to host Euro 2024. An information meeting was held at the TFF’s administrative center in Beykoz, Turkey, and the organisations’s president, Yildirim Demiroren, confirmed the bid.

“We deserve to be the host of Euro 2024,” Demiroren said. “Today we came together for a good job on behalf of Turkish football. We are together for Euro 2024 bid, which we have already applied for three times today, for the fourth time. The deadline for candidacy application is March 3, 2017 which we will apply on March 2, 2017.”

In 2014, the TFF dropped its bid to host the final and semi-finals of Euro 2020, which will take place in 13 different countries across Europe. The federation was convinced Turkey is ready to host more than just two rounds, saying, per ESPN FC: “We are at a point where we can undertake the entire tournament, not just the semi-finals and final.”

There will inevitably be questions about Turkey’s ability to host Euro 2024, as the country – once held as an example of secular democracy in a Muslim state – is the “world’s biggest prison” for journalists under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who became the nation’s president in 2014 and tightened the grip on freedom of expression.