The 1996 European Football Championship (or simply Euro 96) was hosted by England.
It was the 10th edition of the European Football Championship, held every four years and endorsed by UEFA.
The final tournament took place between June 8 and June 30, 1996.
This was the very first edition to introduce the current format of 16 countries disputing the final tournament. 15 had to go through a qualifying round to reach the final stage. England qualified automatically as hosts of the event.
The qualifying round was played throughout 1994 and 1995. There were eight qualifying groups of six teams each, with the exception of group 3, which only had 5. The matches were played in a home-and-away basis.
The winner and the runner-up of each group qualified automatically, with the exception of the two worst runners-up. These two teams had to play an additional playoff between them (single match in neutral ground), to determine the 16th team to join all others in the final tournament.
