Ireland's Bid for 2029 UEFA Women's Champions League Final Falls Short
Ireland’s bid to bring the 2029 UEFA Women’s Champions League final to Dublin has fallen short, with Cardiff’s Principality Stadium winning the race to host European club football’s biggest night in the women’s game.
UEFA’s executive committee met on Tuesday to decide the venue, with the Aviva Stadium on a four-strong shortlist alongside Cardiff, Parc Olympique Lyonnais in France and Basel’s St Jakob-Park. When the decision came, it went Wales’ way.
For the FAI, it stings. Dublin has proved itself on the European stage: Europa League finals in 2011 and 2024, and seven games locked in for Euro 2028. The 2029 showpiece would have been another statement that the city sits comfortably among Europe’s great football hosts. Instead, it is Cardiff that will take centre stage.
UEFA also rubber-stamped a heavyweight line-up for upcoming men’s and women’s finals. Munich’s Allianz Arena will stage the 2028 Men’s Champions League final, with Barcelona’s Nou Camp set for 2029. On the women’s side, the 2028 decider goes to Parc Olympique Lyonnais in Lyon, the spiritual home of the modern women’s club game.
In Dublin, the reaction mixed disappointment with defiance.
FAI CEO David Courell said: “Congratulations to the Football Association of Wales on their successful bid for Cardiff to host the 2029 UEFA Women's Champions League final and thank you to UEFA for its positive feedback on the association's bid.
“The FAI's ambition to host this final was part of its ongoing commitment to supporting the development of women and girls' football and that will continue with participation levels at an all-time high, as well as more female coaches, match officials, administrators and volunteers helping to drive the game forward.”
So the showcase goes across the Irish Sea, but the wider battle for growth continues on both sides of it.
For Wales, this is more than a prestige fixture. It is a landmark.
FAW chief executive Noel Mooney, a Limerick native, called it “about much more than one night in 2029.”
“Our ambition is for the UEFA Women's Champions League final to become a catalyst for the continued transformation of women’s and girls’ football in Wales.
“Welsh football has made incredible progress. We have more than 20,000 women and girls playing the game, a growing domestic structure through the Adran Leagues and a Cymru team that has now competed on the major tournament stage. Bringing this final to Wales gives us another opportunity to accelerate that progress.”
For Mooney, it is a personal coup as well as an institutional one: an Irishman front and centre of Welsh football’s biggest hosting win in the women’s game.
Nations League shake-up hits home
While finals were being handed out, UEFA’s executive committee also quietly redrew part of the international landscape. The 2026/27 UEFA Nations League will usher in a new promotion and relegation system, with a direct knock-on for the Republic of Ireland.
From the 2028/29 cycle, the Nations League will slim down from four leagues to three, each containing 18 teams. League D disappears. Everyone in that bottom tier moves up into League C.
The new structure is blunt: three leagues of 18, split into three groups of six. Each nation will play six games against five different opponents – home or away against teams from other seeding pots, and home and away against the side from their own pot.
The detail matters for Ireland.
Under the revised format, if the Republic finish bottom of their League B group this year, they will no longer drop automatically. Instead, they face a play-off to avoid relegation to League C. It is a small safety net, but one that could prove crucial.
Ireland open their Nations League campaign against Kosovo on Thursday, 24 September. Israel and Austria complete the group. Every point will carry extra weight now that the ladder between the leagues is tightening.
The promotion and relegation picture becomes a web of play-offs and automatic moves.
- The four group winners in League B go straight up to League A.
- The two lowest-ranked fourth-placed teams in League A come down to League B.
Then come the play-offs.
Between League A and B, the two lowest-ranked third-placed sides from League A and the two highest-ranked fourth-placed teams from League A will meet the four runners-up from League B. The winners of those ties play in League A; the defeated sides drop into or remain in League B.
Between League B and C, the four fourth-placed teams in League B face the four runners-up from League C. Win, and you are in League B. Lose, and you are in League C.
With League D scrapped and its teams promoted into League C, the floor of European competition rises. The middle ground, where Ireland currently operate, becomes more congested and more unforgiving.
The next UEFA Executive Committee meeting will take place in Belfast on 7 December, one day after the Euro 2028 qualifying draw in the same city. By then, Ireland will have a clearer idea of where they stand in this new Nations League order – clinging to League B, or daring to look up instead of down.
