Birmingham City Council has appealed for more money to bridge the funding gap

The 2026 European Championships, scheduled to take place at the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham (August 3-9), may have to be moved from the city due to a 2.2m funding shortfall.

Birmingham City Council, which declared effective bankruptcy last September, was given 13.7m to host the championships but has now appealed for more money.

The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) told the BBC that securing the funding was essential for the event to remain in the city.

Plugging the funding shortfall would need both WMCA and government approval and come from a 3m injection sourced from the Grassroots Sports Programme, a multi-sport scheme to level up sports facilities across the UK.

Birmingham City Council originally agreed to underwrite the full cost of staging the championships as part of a joint bid with UK Athletics and UK Sport.

However, after the council declared effective bankruptcy there was concern that Birmingham may not be in a position to hold the event.

The topic will be discussed at the WMCA board meeting on January 12.

If the championships go ahead it will be the first time that the UK has hosted since its inception in 1934.

Birmingham is well versed in staging major athletics outdoor championships after a spectacular Commonwealth Games saw a total of approximately 360,000 people watch athletics at the Alexander Stadium.

The temporary upper stands around both of the bends were removed after the Games and the current capacity of the modern venue is around 18,000, much lower than the 32,000 it held last summer.

The expectation is that those stands would be reintroduced for the European Championships in two years.

Birmingham is not also the first city in the past year to have concerns about the cost of hosting a championships.

The Commonwealth Games faces an uncertain future after Gold Coast became the second Australian city to pull out of the 2026 edition last year. A lack of government support also shelved Hamiltons bid to host the Games in 2030, 100 years on from hosting the first instalment of the event.