Southgate will name a provisional 26-man squad in May amid Uefa’s consideration to reinstate a 26-man squad policy – which was introduced during Covid.
Euro 2024: When does Gareth Southgate name his squad?
England boss Gareth Southgate will name an expanded initial Euro 2024 squad as Uefa says it will consider requests to reinstate 26-man squads.
Southgate will announce the provisional squad on 21 May – two days after the end of the Premier League.
Unlike the previous two tournaments with a 26-man limit, Southgate must reduce his squad to 23 on 7 June.
“There are so many questions on injuries,” said Southgate.
“It’s inevitable we’re going to be naming a longer squad, which is what we did before the Euros here even though we were dealing with 26 then.
“It seems to be [settled at 23]. There is one more Uefa meeting where there’s been a little bit of talk amongst some of the coaches about possibly increasing that.”
Euro 2024 26 man squad
Squad limits were increased from 23 to 26 for the Euros in 2021 and the World Cup in 2022 because of the pandemic and the risk of multiple cases of infection within a squad forcing players to isolate.
Ronald Koeman, the Netherlands manager, described Uefa’s decision to reduce squad sizes for this summer’s tournament as “absurd” this week.
Uefa said it had “taken note” of comments expressed by some national team coaches on the squad size and would listen to the views of coaches at a workshop on 8 April.
The FA Cup, Europa League and Champions League finals are all to be played after Southgate names his provisional squad on 21 May, with many of his players likely to be involved and England then have two more friendlies in June.
‘It’s going to be complicated because [of] the injury situations that we have,” said Southgate. “Some will be back playing at the weekend, some will be back playing in a couple of weeks, some will be really close to the end of the season.”
English football timeline – Premier League season, FA Cup & Euros in Germany!
19 May: Premier League final day
21 May: Southgate names provisional Euro 2024 squad
22 May: Europa League final
25 May: FA Cup final
1 June: Champions League final
3 June: England v Iceland
7 June: England v Bosnia-Herzegovina
7 June (late): Deadline for final Euros squad submitted to Uefa
14 June: Euros starts
16 June: England v Serbia (20:00 BST)