More bad news for UEFA and the Euro 2016 organising committee. After earlier Nancy and Lens dropped out as Euro 2016 host cities, there is now trouble in Toulouse, where the renovation budget for Stadium de Toulouse has been cut back significantly.
The original plans, budgeted at €67 million, envisaged the construction of a second-tier as well as a major upgrade of the lower tier of the stadium. The city of Toulouse, which was to pay for the redevelopment, has however not been able to find the money and reduced the budget to €37 million.
As a result the extra tier will get scrapped and renovation works will only focus on the lower tier. This, however, also means a reduction of capacity from the 42,000 seats that had been planned.
The extra tier would have added a total of 9,000 seats, but more spacious seats at the lower tier also mean that 3,000 seats are lost here. The result is a final capacity of 33,000, which is 2,000 below the minimum UEFA requirement of 35,000 for a European Championships playing venue.
It is unclear what this means for Toulouse’s nomination as a host city, but it is likely that the city will be saved by the fact that there are just no alternatives available.
Ironically, Toulouse was not included in the first selection of host cities by the French organising committee, but was rescued by Platini and the UEFA executive committee after it heavily protested.