BERLIN, Nov 27: A plan to stage the 2020 European football championships across the entire continent instead of one or two countries enjoys wide support among national federations, Germany’s football association (DFB) said on Tuesday.

Ahead of two days of meetings in Brussels with European football’s governing body UEFA, DFB General Secretary Helmut Sandrock said they were initially surprised by UEFA boss Michel Platini’s concept.

The proposal, yet to be ratified by the UEFA executive committee, could see 12 countries hosting an expanded tournament involving 24 teams, up from the current 16.

“We were surprised when we first heard the idea,” Sandrock said. “But I myself had discussions to learn more about this idea and we know that there have been two strategy discussions with national federations already and there is a lot of support for such a Euro tournament.

“We discussed this idea at the DFB as we had supported the Turkey 2020 bid but we know there is wide support from our partners in Europe (for Platini’s pan).”

Turkey have expressed a wish to stage the tournament on a conventional, single-country basis but their bid will be dropped if Istanbul is awarded the Olympics in the same year. Scotland, Wales and Ireland have also declared their interest in staging the finals.—Reuters