Casement Park and the long road to Euro 2028 – BBC News

In west Belfast, just a stone’s throw from the busy M1 motorway heading south out of Belfast, is where you’ll find Northern Ireland’s sole venue for Euro 2028.

It first opened in 1953 as a stadium for Gaelic games, and has been the home of Antrim GAA since its inception. The official capacity was just more than 31,000, although three-quarters of the ground was terracing.

However, there have been no visitors to Casement in more than a decade and, for years, any passing motorists able to crane their neck into the ground would only see a derelict husk.

To answer that question, we have to go back a couple of decades.

At that time, Northern Ireland’s three main stadiums for football, rugby and GAA – Windsor Park, Ravenhill, and Casement – were seen as increasingly not fit for purpose.

Money and a new plan was needed. Initially, Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government – the Northern Ireland Executive – came up with an idea for a new, multi-purpose national stadium for all sports.

But the divisive proposal of situating the stadium at the site of the Maze Prison – which held paramilitary prisoners during the Troubles, Northern Ireland’s bloody conflict of 30 years – meant the idea was eventually dashed on the political rocks.

So instead, in 2011, it was decided that cash would go towards stadium redevelopment:

While Ravenhill and Windsor – or the National Stadium as it’s now officially known – are open and hosting big events, Casement Park has not seen so much as a shovel.

In 2012, stadium designers were appointed to the project and it was expected the new Casement Park would be built by 2015. But it didn’t turn out that way.

Local residents, led by the Mooreland and Owenvarragh Residents Association (MORA), had lodged a legal challenge over objections to the stadium’s size – they said it would block out light from local homes and cause serious traffic disruption.

Then, in 2015, came possibly the most contentious year of the Casement Park project.

Firstly, it emerged that a Safety Technical Group (STG) formed to oversee safety issues around the new stadium had not approved the design plans due to concerns over how long it would take people to leave the ground in an emergency.

With the original Casement plan now scrapped, the GAA went to work on plans for a new stadium, revising the capacity down to about 34,500.

While the Casement saga rumbled on, authorities from the UK and Ireland’s five football associations were getting their heads together to explore the possibility of co-hosting the 2030 World Cup.

The submitted bid included 10 stadia, with Casement Park as Northern Ireland’s sole venue.

Despite the new ground only existing on a drawing board, it was Northern Ireland’s only chance to host tournament matches, given Uefa’s requirement that all host stadia exceed 30,000 capacity.

Northern Ireland’s football home, the National Stadium, holds 18,500 spectators.

When Turkey, the only other nation bidding for Euro 2028, withdrew from the process in early October, it meant the UK and Ireland bid – with Casement Park along for the ride – was all set for the big stage.

Short answer – we still don’t know yet.

Originally the stadium was to cost about £76m, with £61m coming from Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government and £15m from the GAA.

So that leaves a considerable amount of money needed to get the stadium built.

Last year, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris was asked where that extra money would come from – and he struck a confident tone.

“We’ll get the money, don’t you worry,” he said in May 2023.

But that confidence appears to have evaporated. In March, a leaked letter from Mr Heaton-Harris to Communities Minister Gordon Lyons said the government “will not accept a position where it is expected to cover the scale of funding gap there appears to exist”.

He said authorities are “waiting for confirmation from the UK government about their funding commitment”.

Ulster GAA and the Irish FA wrote a joint letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, appealing for clarity over Casement Park funding.

With a major football tournament on the horizon, a considerable amount of political will exists to make sure the new Casement Park is built and ready for 2028.

But the clock is ticking and, as July’s general election approaches, the chances of funding being agreed in the short term is very unlikely.

Well, it’s not just residents’ concerns and the cost of the project which has been raising eyebrows.

Some of that frustration is driven by stadium money of a different kind – when cash was announced for Casement, Windsor Park and Ravenhill more than a decade ago, £36m was set aside for what were described as sub-regional football stadia.

Most football league grounds in Northern Ireland are in dire need of redevelopment. And with the £25m earmarked for Windsor, it would mean football and Gaelic games both getting an equal slice – £61m – from the public purse.

The complicated political landscape is also a factor. Northern Ireland’s football team is cross-community, but takes much of it support from the Protestant community, while many Catholics support the Republic of Ireland. The national team’s home, Windsor Park, is in a unionist area, while Casement Park is in predominantly nationalist west Belfast.

It’s named after Sir Roger Casement, an Irish revolutionary who, in 1916, was executed in London for treason. Even the GAA’s own history with football is complicated, given that up until 2005 a rule was in place forbidding other sports from using GAA pitches.

Secure the rest of the funding, build the stadium and get ready to host the biggest sporting event in Northern Ireland’s history – well, that’s the simple answer.

The more complicated answer, after more than 10 years of twists and turns, remains to be seen.