The UK and Ireland's Euro 2028 bid could be worth close to £100m for the city of Newcastle if it is successful after St James' Park was chosen as one of the host stadiums.
St James' was one of 10 stadia to make the final cut - which could lead to huge benefits for the city if the overall bid is picked by UEFA later this year. As well as the honour of having games at St James', ChronicleLive understands UK Sport's specially produced socio-economic modelling tool has estimated that being a host could be worth £98.7m to the city of Newcastle.
Given what is at stake, then, perhaps, it was not a surprise that Newcastle United and Newcastle City Council's joint-submission was a year in the making as the city bids to host European Championship matches for the first time since 1996. The FA first held a workshop event last April, where the association outlined the requirements, and a whopping 23 stadiums declared an interest in hosting during what was an extremely competitive process.
