UEFA launched the bidding process for the 2020 European Championship on Wednesday and said a decision on the host would be reached in late 2013 or early 2014.
UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino said at the end of two-day executive committee meeting that invitations to bid will be sent to all 53 European football nations outlining the hosting requirements. Nations will have two months in which to declare an interest.
Joint bids are likely to be allowed for the 24-nation tournament, which involves 51 matches being played across a month. The Netherlands and Belgium co-hosted the competition in 2000, Switzerland and Austria in 2008, and Poland and Ukraine will this year.
''We have 24 teams, which means nine (stadiums) are necessary to organize such an event,'' Infantino said, stressing the difficulty of staging the competition.
Bidders typically call on public funds for the construction or upgrades of venues, which could prove tough to find in the global economic downturn. The governments of Sweden and Norway have refused to guarantee stadium costs for a joint bid for Euro 2016, while Rome recently pulled out of the 2020 Olympic Games vote due to a lack of government support.
Turkey, which is bidding to stage the 2020 Olympics in Istanbul, is also weighing the possibility of bidding to host Euro 2020. Its bid to host Euro 2016 lost out to France, which had the backing of President Nicolas Sarkozy and a pledge of ?662 million (then $820 million) in public funds.
Infantino said if UEFA receives only one expression of interest, then it would proceed with obtaining all the necessary guarantees before confirming the host.
In other business, a revived request for Gibraltar to become a UEFA member would be voted at an annual congress next year.
''A road map which includes financial and educational support was agreed,'' Infantino said. ''This road map will run until the congress in 2013 when member associations will vote on the request.''
Gibraltar, a British territory on Spain's southern coast, has tried to join UEFA since 1999.
Spain opposes its membership because of claims of sovereignty and has helped block attempts in the past, including a vote to deny Gibraltar's membership at the 2007 UEFA Congress.
Gibraltar Football Association, which dates back to 1895, applied to FIFA for membership in 1997 with the backing of England. FIFA then passed the request to UEFA.
The UEFA executive committee rejected a proposal that would have allowed Welsh clubs who play in English leagues - including Premier League side Swansea City - to opt out of English cup competitions in order to focus on the Welsh Cup and try to qualify for the Europa League.
''The principle is: if you play in a competition in one country you qualify through that country,'' Infantino said.
Also, the executive committee approved a three-year trial of a women's cross-border league between Netherlands and Belgium.
A working group had considered joining the men's leagues of neighbors Czech Republic and Slovakia but the proposal was not approved Wednesday.
Some countries have pushed to merge national leagues to improve quality and generate more interest in matches.
Infantino said a decision on dealing with Turkish clubs implicated in a match-fixing scandal rests with the Turkish football federation.
He said, however, that the federation should ''rapidly'' take ''the right and appropriate'' sanctions.
Fenerbahce President Aziz Yildirim and 92 other people are on trial in a scandal that allegedly involves more than a dozen league games last season.
Fenerbahce, which denies any wrongdoing, was barred from the Champions League. But the Turkish federation is yet to make a decision on other possible sanctions for last year's league champions or any other teams implicated.
The federation's chairman stepped down in January after a proposed rule change was rejected that would have deducted points from the league standings but prevented the implicated teams from being relegated.
''The quicker the decision the better it is for Turkish football,'' Infantino said.
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AP Sports Writer Graham Dunbar in Geneva contributed to this report.
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