The final stages are to be spread across 13 different European cities with a final at Wembley Stadium in London. Čeferin has confirmed that the multi-national tournament will be a one-off to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the competition.

Each participating city now has a distinctive bridge themed logo which UEFA say is "a simple universal symbol of connection". Bridges "connect peoples and cultures, north and south, east and west, just like football", the governing body said.

No cities which have hosted European Championships matches after 2000 have been chosen. Eight of those selected for duty will experience this stage of the European Championships for the first time although Baku did welcome the entire continent in 2015 for the inaugural European Games. Amsterdam, Rome, Munich, Brussels and Wembley have all hosted matches in the final stages of a European tournament and newcomers Glasgow will at least have the recent experience as a 2012 Olympic venue to draw on. 

However, the year 2020 also marks the 60th anniversary of one of the greatest games played in the city, or for that matter anywhere. They certainly won’t emulate the 127,000 Hampden Park crowd from the 1960 European Cup final, but an encounter similar in quality to Real Madrid’s wonderful 7-3 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt would be very welcome indeed.

Although qualification for Euro 2020 is still some way in the future, there is something about the format which brings to mind that wistful French phrase "Plus ca change". In fact, it is a minestrone of past Euro formats, so it really is a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Until 40 years ago, the Euros were all very simple. From the preliminary stages, everything was on a home and away basis right through to the quarter-finals. Only at the semi-final stage did the last four surviving teams come together. The enlarged tournament style format has seen three Euros co-hosted by two nations since the new Millennium. The Belgians and Dutch came together in 2000, then we had Austria and Switzerland in 2008 before Poland joined forces with Ukraine in 2012.

Earlier this summer, the choice of France as host nation was in a sense the Euros coming home this summer. The trophy lifted by Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal in Paris this summer bears the name of the man who inspired its creation.

Henri Delaunay was one of the early supporters of international football in Europe. By the mid 1920s he had become secretary of the French Football Federation and in 1927 he suggested that a European Championships for football be established. His idea reflected the enthusiasm of another Frenchman, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the long time leader of the Olympic Movement. Coubertin was also enthusiastic about the regional development of sport. For one reason or another, initiatives such as Pan African and South American Games fell by the wayside.

Football should have had a better chance. Tournaments such as the Mitropa Cup for clubs and other regional competitions in Northern Europe were already underway, but by the late 1920s, football's authorities were preoccupied with the establishment of an authentic football World Cup in the wake of Uruguay’s successive Olympic gold medals. The first tournament was duly held in Uruguay and only four European nations saw fit to make the long voyage to South America.

Although the World Cup was held in Europe twice in the 1930s, Delaunay’s idea was not taken up, although swimming and athletics did establish their own European Championships.

In the post-war years, improved travel made it possible for more regular international sporting contact but club football led the way in Europe. Moscow Dynamo’s tour of Britain in 1946 drew huge crowds and less than a decade later prestige international friendlies under floodlights also caught the public imagination. 

In 1954, English league champions Wolverhampton Wanderers beat Hungarian army club side Honved, a team which included Ferenc Puskas and others from the star-studded Hungarian national team which had twice humiliated England in the preceding months. The victory brought forth jingoistic headlines in the British press, claiming that Wolves should now be considered "world champions". It prompted the famous French sporting newspaper L’Equipe to suggest a competition to settle the matter. Thus was born UEFA and what eventually became the Champions League.

Delaunay Sr had died by the time any firm action was taken about a European "Nations Cup" but his son Pierre lent his support to journalists calling for this to be introduced. UEFA's member nations discussed the idea at a meeting in Cologne in early 1957 and six months later it was confirmed by 15 votes to seven at their Congress in Copenhagen, although England were amongst those who abstained in the final vote. A writer for L’Equipe observed wryly: "If the French were as good playing football as they are thinking about it, then the next World Cup would be a foregone conclusion."

The timing of the formal announcement of the tournament might have been better. It came in Stockholm a few days before the 1958 World Cup. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it was overshadowed.

Only 17 teams took the plunge in that first tournament. West Germany, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland decided not to enter. For those who did, the format mirrored the European Cup competition for clubs. A straight knock-out competition with two-leg matches. The result would be decided by aggregate score to decide the result but the competition would be held over two seasons with the final scheduled for the summer of 1960.

To reduce the 17 teams, a preliminary round match between the Republic of Ireland and Czechoslovakia was arranged by drawing lots. So the honour of scoring the first goal in the new competition went to Liam Tuohy of Shamrock Rovers, later to manage his country. The Irish won the first leg 2-0 but went out on aggregate. Incidentally, Tuohy lived to see his compatriots reach the knock-out stages of France 2016 and in 2020 Dublin will be one of the host cities.

Back in 1960, as the tournament reached the last eight Spain had been drawn to play the Soviet Union. General Franco decreed otherwise. Spain withdrew for political reasons and the Soviets took their place in the semi-finals alongside Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Happily, France also qualified. In a poetic gesture which was partly as a tribute to Delaunay’s memory, it was decided that France should stage the semis and final. 

Yugoslavia beat the hosts in the semi but only 17,000 bothered to watch the final at the Parc des Princes. The match went to extra-time before the USSR became the first nation to raise the distinctive Delaunay trophy, a silver copy of a Greek urn. The original was from 400BC. 

It was to be 44-years before the Greeks themselves would get to lift it. 

There was an increased entry for the second competition, which was run from 1962 to 1964 and included the West Germans and the four British nations. However, none made much progress. Once again the final four nations would play-off to decide the title. General Franco had mellowed in his attitude to the Soviets by this time and agreed to host the tournament. The matches took place in Barcelona and Madrid. The final, played in front of 120,000 in the Bernabéu, saw Spain claim their first international honour, inspired by a man called Luis Suarez.

A Spanish city will also host matches in Euro 2020 but not Barcelona or Madrid. Instead, the teams head north to Basque city of Bilbao.

For 1968, the tournament had a name change and was now to be known as the European Football Championships. The format had altered too as this time there were qualifying groups to provide the quarter-finalists.

The four British teams were already playing against one another each season in the existing Home International Championship. It was decided that the results over two seasons would be used to determine who would advance to the quarter-finals. England, the 1966 World Cup winners, were favourites but that reckoned without their oldest international rivals. Scotland were inspired to a memorable 3-2 victory at Wembley by mercurial stars Jim Baxter and Denis Law and the match has entered Scottish folklore. Even so, later results ensured it was England who finished top of the group.

In the quarter-finals, England won in Spain to cement their place in the semi-final. Astonishingly, it remains their only victory in a knock-out European Championship match away from home even though 48-years have passed. The Soviets attracted a massive 103,000 for their quarter final victory against Hungary, which bodes well for when St Petersburg hosts matches in 2020.

The world champions were beaten by Yugoslavia but the other semi between Italy and the Soviets in Naples was decided in very unsatisfactory fashion. The teams could not be separated after extra-time, and a coin was tossed to decide who would go through. Italian skipper Giacinto Facchetti guessed correctly.

The final against Yugoslavia was just as close. This time there was no coin toss but a replay. Pietro Anastasi, briefly the world’s most expensive footballer at £500,000, scored one of the goals for Italy.

Rome has been confirmed as one of the host cities for 2020 despite mayor Virginia Raggi’s decision not to back an Olympic bid in 2024. She was more enthusiastic about the Euros.

‘"We want our city and the whole of Italy to be part of this great event," she said. "We will welcome them with joy."

In 1972, West Germany were already assembling the team that became known locally as ‘"The Team of the Century". To a potent formula which already included world stars such as Franz Beckenbauer and Gerd Muller, head coach Helmut Schoen added midfielder Gunter Netzer who inspired an electrifying performance on a soggy evening at Wembley as the Germans surged into the last four. 

There, they met and beat host nation Belgium. An equally convincing victory accounted for the Soviet Union in the final in Brussels. Two years later, the Germans became the first to hold European and world titles at the same time and many expected them to retain the title in 1976, the last to be decided with the four team mini-tournament.

Wales were the big surprise. They reached the quarter-finals with an exhilarating run, to be eclipsed only by their exploits in France this summer when they made the last four. Their performance, coming as it did away from the spotlight of a tournament, is largely forgotten and now eclipsed by the heroics of 2016. They lost out over two legs to Yugoslavia who took their place as host nation for a helter-skelter week of action.

Despite the presence of Johan Cruyff, the Dutch lost their heads with two men sent off and then just lost to the Czechs who thus reached an unexpected final against defending champions West Germany. 

"We never thought we would even get to the semi-finals," admitted goalkeeper Ivo Viktor.

The final in Belgrade was the first to be decided by a penalty shoot-out. It finished 2-2 following extra time. Antonin Panenka’s loop over Sepp Maier decided the issue in Czechoslovakia’s favour. It was a collector's item. The Germans have rarely lost a penalty decider since and, with curious symmetry, beat the Czech Republic in the 1996 final thanks to a "golden goal" designed to do away with the need for penalties.

The format changed decisively for 1980. Gone was the ad-hoc arrangement after home and away quarter-finals. Instead came an eight team final tournament with two groups of four. The top in each would contest the final.

Italy and England both tabled bids to become host nation but it was the Italians who were selected.

It proved an unhappy tournament as negative football was overshadowed by hooligans fighting on the terraces. The police deployed tear gas to restore order during an early match between England and Belgium.

The Belgians took few risks but qualified for the final after a dour 0-0 draw against host nation Italy. In the final it was close but the West Germans, in their third consecutive final, won again.

UEFA kept faith with the eight team format for the 1984 tournament in France with one important adjustment, the addition of a semi-final. By doing so they were rewarded with one of the most exciting competitions ever to have taken place. The two semis were both great spectacles, especially the pulsating encounter between the host nation and Portugal. Michel Platini was the architect of a French victory. Their win in the final against Spain was an anti-climax by comparison.

The eight team pattern lasted for two more tournaments. In 1988, the final was played in Munich, another city which will stage Games in the 2020 competition. The Dutch proved irresistible and Marco van Basten scored one of the finest goals ever seen in a major final to set them on the way to victory over the Soviet Union.

In 1992, a team that had not even qualified for the finals lifted the trophy. Most of the Danish team was on holiday when summoned to Sweden after Yugoslavia were expelled as a result of international sanctions during the Balkan War. The Danes beat the Germans in the final. Twenty-eight years later, the Danish capital Copenhagen will be part of the Euro 2020 mix as a group host.

The fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s enlarged Europe and UEFA at a stroke. The decision was taken to expand the Championships. In 1996, for the first time, 16 teams took part. The tournament was held in England and a resurgent host nation reached the semi-final but lost on penalties to Germany who even adopted the home anthem Three Lions and it's central lyric, "Football’s coming home".

In fact, the official song of Euro 96 was the now long forgotten "We’re in this together" by Simply Red.

The launch of Euro 2020 took a similar theme, promising "a new identity that celebrates football’s unifying strengths".

Hopefully they will learn from 2016 where every goal was drowned out by music. Every outburst of spontaneous singing from the crowd was also overshadowed by the approved music.

UEFA are bullish about the wisdom of expanding the tournament to 24 teams. Without such a move we might not have had the magical saga of Iceland, nor for that matter the near fairytale provided by the Welsh.

They insist that the expansion of their tournament is not simply about making money, but when attending any major sporting event now the impression given is that the ordinary supporter is very low down the pecking order. In 2020, UEFA will have to work hard if they are to fulfil their stated aim of "taking the Euros to the fans".