Quote: wigsey "I think there are some really poor venue choices there. Middlesbrough, Coventry, Sheffield, Newcastle, Liverpool, Arsenal. Too many novelty expansion venues. Also Elland Road has a Wooden seated stand with pillars obscuring views. It was a good stadium in the 1980's it's really not now.
Going to be very hard to sell tickets given that many people will wait until the current Covid situation becomes clearer before investing in more tickets that potentially are money down the drain.'"
While I agree the venues are ambitious, part of the reason for the choices was that the government funds were only granted if almost all the games were staged in the North. Unlike last time where they used Wales, France, Limerick and Bristol.
Agree that tickets will be a hard sell due to Covid but not a lot else they can do, this event was arranged about 5 years ago.
Agree that Elland Road is too old, but it's will be the non-England semi final so they have to put it in the heartlands to shift tickets, and the M62 doesn't have a lot of 30k+ grounds. Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle are of course hosting other high profile games already.
Hopefully Leeds being back in the Premier League prompts a few improvements, Hull and Middlesbrough had to invest in new floodlights, new media areas etc despite their grounds being fairly young.