Wembley was in a battle with Munich's Allianz Arena for the right to stage the showpiece games in a competition which, for the first time, will be held across Europe.

But with German football chiefs hinting at a future bid to stage the Euro 2024 tournament on its own, Wembley looked an increasingly dead cert to get the nod from UEFA.

And at a UEFA Executive Committee meeting in the Swiss city of Geneva today, that is exactly what happened.

"The bid was about working with UEFA to celebrate young people, develop our grassroots volunteers and demonstrate the determination for all England teams, men's and women's, to compete at the top level," said English Football Associaiton chairman Greg Dyke after the announcement.

"This was recognised by the leaders of all three political parties, the Mayor of London, the Sports Minister and everyone who contributed in putting the bid together."

Wembley hosted the final of Euro 1996, but the stadium was demolished and replaced with the current arena in 2007.

UEFA has awarded four cities the right to each stage one quarter-final and three group games.

They are Azerbaijan's capital Baku, Munich, Rome in Italy and Russian city Saint Petersburg.

Both Azerbaijan and Russia have never staged a European Championship match since the first tournament in 1960.

The 2020 edition will celebrate 60 years since that inaugural competition.

Nineteen cities submitted bids to stage games by the April deadline, with UEFA publishing evaluation reports on each earlier this month.

The under-construction Baku National Stadium is one of four venues that will stage a quarter-final during Euro 2020 ©Baku 2015



The governing body for European football has picked eight cities to host one round of 16 game and three group games.

They are:

• Brussels, Belgium

• Copenhagen, Denmark

• Budapest, Hungary

• Amsterdam, The Netherlands

• Dublin, Republic of Ireland

• Bucharest, Romania

• Glasgow, Scotland

• Bilbao, Spain

Of these eight countries, only Belgium, The Netherlands and Spain have previously hosted European Championship matches.

The tournament will be held right across Europe, with Dublin in the west and Baku in the east more than 2,700 miles apart as the crow flies.

Six cities failed to impress UEFA chiefs with their bids, with Belarusian capital Minsk and Sweden's capital Stockholm among them.

Cardiff in Wales, Jerusalem in Israel, Skopje in the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgarian capital Sofia have all also fallen by the wayside.

No team will automatically qualify for the Euro 2020 tournament, but every qualified host will be guaranteed two home games in the group phase.

There is no such guarantee for the knockout stages.

While groups will be drawn according to seeding, as is the norm, UEFA said "allocation of hosting teams to groups would also take travel distances into account (for example, and where feasible, flights would not exceed two hours' duration between host cities to allow easy access to travelling fans)".

The dates of the 24-team competition have not yet been announced.