Northern Ireland’s Windsor Park home makes 2020 UEFA Super Cup pitch

Belfast’s Windsor Park is among nine European grounds in the running to host the UEFA Super Cup in 2020, European football’s governing body has announced.

Home to Northern Ireland, owned by Linfield and refurbished in 2016, the 18,434-seat capacity stadium also bid for the 2019 event but lost out to Istanbul’s Vodafone Arena.

Nations hosting matches in the 2020 European Championship were not allowed to enter bids for the 2020 Super Cup, which is played in August between the winners of the Champions League and the Europa League.

Declarations of interest at this stage are not binding and final proposals must be submitted by March 29. The winning bid will be chosen by UEFA’s executive committee in May 2018.

The nine stadiums to have expressed an interest are: Albania’s National Arena in Tirana; Dinamo Stadium in Minsk, Belarus; the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, Finland; France’s Grand Stade de Nice; the Sami Ofer in Haifa, Israel; Kazakhstan’s Central Stadium in Almaty; the Zimbru Stadium in Chisinau, Moldova; Windsor Park and Porto’s Estadio do Dragao.

Manchester United lost this season’s Super Cup 2-1 to Real Madrid in the Macedonian capital Skopje last August.