Euro championships to expand to 24 teams: Beckenbauer

The European football championships in 2016 will be expanded from 16 teams to 24, FIFA’s European executive committee member Franz Beckenbauer said here Thursday.

UEFA sources said that the proposed expansion would be voted on by the body’s 13-man executive committee on Friday.

The 16-team format for the Euro finals has been in place since 1996.

But presidents of the 53 federations that make up UEFA spoke out in favour of an expansion during an informal meeting with UEFA president Michel Platini on the eve of the Euro 2008 final in Vienna in June.

Immediate ramifications for the staging of the tournament, should the expansion go ahead, would be an increase to 51 matches from 31 over four weeks instead of three.