The UEFA has officially communicated to the Basque institutions that Bilbao will not host the next Eurocup.
In a joint statement, the Bilbao City Council, the Vizcaya Provincial Council and the Basque Government announced this “unilateral” decision by UEFA, which they do not share, and announced that they will enforce the contract they signed with this body to request a economic compensation.
“We are not going to allow any gambling with Bilbao and the Basque Institutions. Nor are we going to allow the proven and long experience and capacity of the Basque authorities to manage and organize events of international scope to be questioned,” they say in this joint note from the City Council, the Provincial Council and the Basque Government.
The Basque authorities will try at all costs to avoid that “doubts remain about the criteria that have always been taken in this project of more than six years in which the Basque style of doing things has prevailed: seriousness, coherence, professionalism and responsibility ”and they insist that“ no one is going to damage the image of Bilbao, Bizkaia or Euskadi; neither locally nor internationally, questioning our ability as a city, territory or country to attract sporting, cultural, social, exhibition or congress events of international interest ”.
The Basque institutions signed a contract with UEFA in 2014 to host this European Championship and claim to have fulfilled it 100%, “as has been recognized on countless occasions by UEFA's own managers”: “We were prepared to carry out everything necessary for the celebration of Euro2020 at the San Mamés stadium next June ”, they specify.