The Republic of Ireland, along with fellow Euro 2028 co-hosts Scotland, Wales, and England, are expected to be granted automatic qualification for the tournament if they fail to qualify through the established process.
Uefa’s executive committee will meet in Bilbao next Wednesday – ahead of the Europa League final between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur – to ratify the qualification format.
David Courell, the FAI chief executive, revealed last November that “automatic slots” will be held for a host nation that fails to qualify.
“We are having conversations with Uefa but the working assumption is all of us will go through qualification and if we are unsuccessful in qualifying on merit, then there will be automatic slots in reserve, but that has yet to be ratified by Uefa,” said Courell last year.
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“I won’t go into the details of it, but what I will say is that we are very confident that we will feature in Euro 2028 on merit because I am happy with the trajectory we are on and we have a brilliant crop of players and have a great coaching team that I think is evolving our approach and style and hopefully, we will see that pay dividends over the coming years.
“That said, we will have the benefit of a highly increased likelihood of qualifying if we don’t go through on merit.”
It remains unclear if the co-hosts will enter the playoffs if they finish second in qualification.
The Euros will take place in nine venues across eight cities in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The Aviva Stadium is set to host six matches, which is an increase on the five matches initially allocated as Northern Ireland withdrew from the process after failing to get funding from the UK government to redevelop Casement Park in Belfast.
“To be clear,” Courell added, “Northern Ireland won’t qualify for an automatic slot if they are not a host nation.”
The other confirmed venues for the 24-team tournament are Hampden Park in Glasgow, the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, St James’ Park in Newcastle, the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, Everton’s new Bramley Moore Dock stadium in Liverpool, Villa Park in Birmingham, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Wembley, which will host the final.
