The 2024 football calendar will witness another football tournament this summer when European teams line up in Germany to determine who will become the winner of the 2024 European Championship.

This is the 17th edition of the UEFA European Championship, and we are due a spectacle when the biggest players in Europe converge this summer. The tournament is a few weeks away, and there is already much anticipation in the air.

To help prepare you for the tournament, here's everything you need to know about Euro 2024.

Hosts

This year's European Championship will be played in Germany.

The three-time European Championship champions secured hosting rights in 2018, beating Turkey, which also indicated interest in hosting the tournament. 

Germany was chosen in a confidential ballot by the UEFA Executive Committee.

When is Euro 2024

The 2024 European Championship will begin on Friday, June 14th, 2024. The tournament will run for a full month, culminating in the grand finale on Sunday, July 14th, 2024.

Format 

The tournament features 24 teams drawn into six groups of four nations.

The group winners and runners-up will progress to the knockout rounds along with the four best third-placed teams.

After this stage, the tournament is a straight knockout until the final, with a round of 16, quarterfinals, and semifinals before the final. 

If no team wins in normal time, the winner is determined by extra time and penalties after the group stage. 

Meanwhile, unlike in the FIFA World Cup and other continental tournaments like Copa America and AFCON, there is no third-place play-off for the teams that lose the semi-finals. 

Calendar 

The group stage will last two weeks, from the opening game between Germany and Scotland on June 14th to the last group stage match between the Czech Republic and Turkey on June 26th.

Each of the 24 participating nations spread among six groups will fight for supremacy other group opponents, with the top two teams from each group progressing to the knockout stages.

The knockout stages begin on June 29. The path for each of the teams that will qualify from their groups has already been set, so there won't be a need for a knockout draw during the tournament.

Meanwhile, the distribution of third-placed teams will depend upon which four groups provide the teams.

The quarterfinals will be played on 3rd and 4th July, followed by the semifinals on 9th and 10th July. 

Finally, the last two teams will face off on July 14th at the iconic Olympiastadion in Berlin to determine the Euro 2024 champion.

Stadiums

One reason Germany won the hosting rights for the tournament is that it had a wide range of good stadiums that satisfied UEFA's minimum capacity requirement of 30,000 seats for European Championship matches.

Ten stadiums across Germany have been selected for the 2024 showpiece. Of the ten chosen stadiums for Euro 2024, some grounds used for the 2006 FIFA World Cup will be used again: Olympiastadion, Berlin (74,00), Signal Iduna Park, Dortmund (81,000), RheinEnergieSTADION, Cologne (50,000), Allianz Arena, Munich (75,000), Stuttgart (54,000), Volksparkstadion, Hamburg (54,000), Red Bull Arena, Leipzig (41,000), Waldstadion, Frankfurt (58,000), and Arena AufSchalke, Gelsenkirchen (62,000).

Merkur Spiel-Arena, Düsseldorf, will serve as the tenth venue. The stadium has a capacity of 54,000, making the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region in North Rhine-Westphalia the area with the highest number of venues in the Euro 2024.

Tickets 

Euro 2024 tickets are already on sale on Seatnet, and fans eager to watch their teams play are buying. We have tickets to all the games available on our website.

Defending Champions 

Italy is the current UEFA Euro holders. The Azzurri won the tournament in 2021, beating England in the final at Wembley.

Qualified teams 

As previously stated, 24 teams have qualified for this year's showpiece.

Germany automatically qualified for the tournament by virtue of their status as hosts, while defending champions Italy needed to win in the playoffs to book their spot.

The other qualified teams alongside Italy and Germany are Scotland, Hungary, Switzerland, Spain, Croatia, Italy, Albania, Slovenia, Denmark, Serbia, England, Poland, Netherlands, Austria, France, Belgium, Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine, Türkiye, Georgia, Portugal, and Czech Republic.

Debutants

Georgia is making its first appearance at the European Championship. The little-known South Caucasus nation secured its spot here at the expense of Greece, whom it beat on penalties in the playoffs to secure a historic first-ever Euro appearance. Georgia’s heroics ensure that a new team has debuted in every tournament since 1960.

Biggest Misses 

Sweden is the biggest team to miss this year's tournament. Their absence marks the first time they have not qualified since the 1996 edition and their second consecutive major tournament after failing to qualify for the 2022 World Cup. 

Meanwhile, Russia, a regular since 2000, was barred from the tournament due to the Ukraine invasion. 

Wales, recent semi-finalists, lost to Poland in the playoffs, while North Macedonia and Finland, who debuted in the last edition, couldn't repeat the feat this year.

Euro 2024 Groups 

Group A: Germany, Scotland, Hungary, Switzerland

Group B: Spain, Croatia, Italy, Albania

Group C: Slovenia, Denmark, Serbia, England

Group D: Poland, Netherlands, Austria, France

Group E: Belgium, Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine

Group F: Türkiye, Georgia, Portugal, Czechia

Favourites 

Despite being the defending champions, Italy is not among the favourites to win this year's tournament. The Azzurri struggled to book their place here, and it doesn't look like they will follow in the footsteps of Spain in 2012 to defend their European crown.

But last year's finalists, England, look primed to go the distance again this year. The Three Lions are well-stocked and have one of the best profiles among the teams in the tournament.

Alongside Gareth Southgate's side, we have Portugal, hosts Germany, and, of course, 2022 World Cup finalists France. 

Portugal finished their qualifiers with a perfect record, while France remains a solid footballing nation with arguably the strongest squad in the world. Despite recently being in the shadows, Germany is rapidly improving under Julian Nagelsmann, and their status as hosts will give them an advantage in this tournament.

Dark horses

Very often in tournaments, we see one or two teams shock the establishment and go all the way like Greece did in 2004 and Portugal did in 2016. 

This year, we believe at least five teams have a chance of being the classic underdog story, with Belgium, Hungary, Croatia, Turkey and Scotland able to hurt the big names.

Squads and deadlines

UEFA requires the 24 national teams involved in the tournament to register a squad of 23 to 26 players – of which three have to be goalkeepers.

The rules initially stated that teams must consist of only 23 players. However, the UEFA Executive Committee amended this on May 3, 2024, expanding the squad size to 26 players. However, only 23 players can be named on the match sheet for each team's match.

This means that several big names could miss out on this year's tournament. We have already seen several big names omitted, with Germany's Mats Hummels and Belgium's Thibaut Courtois the top two names on the omitted list so far.

So far, Hungary, Portugal, France, Belgium, Georgia, Ukraine, and the Czech Republic have announced squads of 26 players or less. 

The other nations have announced a preliminary squad, but they will be expected to give the final list on or before June 6 2024, 23:59 CEST (UTC+2), which is seven days before the tournament's opening match. 

Meanwhile, suppose a player on the submitted squad list suffers from an injury or illness before his team's first match of the tournament, that player can be replaced, provided that the team doctor and a doctor from the UEFA Medical Committee confirm that the injury or sickness is severe enough to prevent the player from participating in the tournament. 

Should a goalkeeper suffer from an injury or illness after his team's first match of the tournament, he could still be replaced, even if the other goalkeepers from the squad are still available. A player who had been replaced on the player list can't be readmitted to the list.

Prize money

The total money available to be distributed by the 24 teams in this year's Euro tournament is €331 million. This means that the prize pool equals the prizes of the last edition.

Each team gets at least €9.25 million for participating in the group stages. A team gets €1 million for a group stage win and €500,000 for a draw.

Meanwhile, UEFA pays €1.5 million to each country that reaches the round of 16 and €2.5 million to each country that reaches the quarter-finals. Each country that reaches the semi-finals gets €4 million, while the losing finalists get €5 million.

The winner gets the heaviest chunk of the cake, with an €8 million prize awaiting the champions of Euro 2024.

Below is the distribution of the European Championship prize money: 

Round Prize money in €

Participation: 9,250,000

Group stage equal: 500,00

Group stage win: 1,000,000

Round of 16: 1,500,000

Quarter-final: 2,500,000

Semi-final: 4,000,000

Second place: 5,000,000

First place: 8,000,000