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The 1996 UEFA European Football Championship (Euro 96) was hosted by England, who won the right to host the tournament ahead of rival bids from Austria, Portugal and the Netherlands. It was the tenth European Football Championship, which is held every four years and endorsed by UEFA, and the first to use the "Euro" name. The tournament's final stages took place between 8 June and 30 June 1996. The slogan of the tournament was "Football Comes Home", as it was the first time the tournament had taken place in England, where the rules of the game were first standardised. English football and popular culture has since referenced the competition fondly even though the home team did not reach the final.
Since the Taylor Report, England now boasted enough all-seater stadia of sufficient capacity to hold an expanded tournament. Although not all the games were sold out, the tournament had the highest aggregate attendance in championship history (1,276,000) and the highest average per game of 41,158 for the revised 16 team format with 31 games. Only Germany had had a higher average attendance in championship history with an average of 56,656 in 1988 but only staged 15 games in an 8 team championship.
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