UEFA has confirmed the qualifying format for Euro 2028, announcing that hosts England, Wales, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland will all have to compete for a place at the tournament, albeit with a back-door route to the finals available to them.
The tournament will see games staged in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool and Newcastle, with Cardiff, Dublin and Glasgow also playing host to matches.
UEFA made it official on Wednesday at an executive meeting in Bilbao that qualifying for the 24-team tournament will see 12 groups comprised of four or five teams, with the group winners and eight best runners-up progressing automatically to the finals.
Two reserve spots in the finals will also be made available to any host nation that does not qualify directly for the finals.
England will expected to qualify with little difficulty, but those insurance spots dramatically increase the hopes of Wales, Scotland and Ireland.
👉 The UEFA Executive Committee has confirmed the EURO 2028 qualification format:
🏟️ Hosts (ENG, IRL, SCO, WAL) will join 12 groups of 4–5 teams.
2️⃣ spots in final tournament will be reserved for best-ranked hosts who aren't qualified.
— UEFA (@UEFA) May 21, 2025
Scotland have qualified for each of last two European Championships, going out in the group stage in 2024 after doing the same at Euro 2020. They have not won a match at the tournament since 1996.
Wales were famously semi-finalists in 2016 and reached the round of 16 five years later at the rescheduled Euro 2020 tournament, but they did not qualify for Euro 2024. Ireland have not played at the Euros since 2016.
The reserve spots will be of no help to Northern Ireland, who are no longer considered tournament hosts after Belfast’s Casement Park was removed as a venue following issues with the redevelopment plans.
The remaining spots will be decided by play-offs between the remaining qualifying group runners-up and 2026-27 Nations League group winners who did not qualify for the tournament.
However, the number of places available through the play-offs may vary between two and four, with the number contingent on how many reserve spots are used by the home nations.
If both reserved slots are used, then eight teams will compete in two paths for the two remaining spots, contesting single-leg semi-finals and finals.
One reserved slot being used will see 12 teams compete in three separate paths with single-leg semi-finals and finals for the three remaining spots.
A scenario in which none of the reserved slots are taken up will result in eight teams contesting four home-and-away playoff ties, with the winners progressing to the finals.
