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Association football


The stadium also hosts the home games of the Republic of Ireland national football team, as did Lansdowne Road. The team had played most home games at Croke Park during the construction of the Aviva Stadium. The first football match in the Aviva Stadium was Manchester United against a League of Ireland XI side, managed by Damien Richardson, on 4 August 2010. Manchester United won the game 7–1, with Park Ji-Sung scoring the first ever goal in the Aviva Stadium. The first international game for Ireland in the Aviva Stadium was a 1–0 friendly loss against Argentina on 11 August 2010. The first competitive goal was scored by Kevin Kilbane in a Euro 2012 qualifying game on 7 September 2010 against Andorra.

Updated as of 28 March 2023.

FAI Cup Final
The Aviva has annually hosted the FAI Cup Final since 2010. While the Aviva Stadium was under construction the cup final hosting was shared between the RDS Arena and Tallaght Stadium. The first Cup Final at the new stadium was the 2010 FAI Cup Final, held on Sunday 14 November 2010. Sligo Rovers beat Shamrock Rovers 2–0 on penalties after the game finished 0–0 after extra time. A total of 36,101 attended the game making it the biggest attendance at an FAI Cup Final since 1968. A total of 37,126 spectators were in attendance for the 2021 final in which St. Patrick's defeated Bohemians F.C. on penalties.

2011 Nations Cup
The 2011 Nations Cup took place in the Aviva Stadium. The tournament featured national football teams from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. In the opening round of fixtures, the Republic of Ireland beat Wales 3–0 while Scotland beat Northern Ireland 3–0. The remaining four fixtures took place in May, with the Republic of Ireland winning the tournament after beating Scotland 1–0 on 29 May, with Keane scoring the only goal.

2011 Europa League Final
The 2011 UEFA Europa League Final between Portuguese sides Porto and Braga took place in the Aviva Stadium. Due to UEFA rules against corporate sponsorship outside the federation, the stadium was referred to as the "Dublin Arena" for this final, that ended with a 1–0 victory for Porto.

Dublin Super Cup
The Dublin Super Cup was a pre-season football tournament which was held at the Aviva. Celtic, Manchester City, Inter Milan and a League of Ireland XI competed in the 2011 edition, with Manchester City winning the tournament.

The 'Dublin Decider'
The 'Dublin Decider' was a game which took place on 10 August 2013. The match was played between Celtic and Liverpool, with both teams having large support in Ireland. Celtic won the match 1-0 thanks to a goal from Amido Balde.

There were talks ongoing about a return of the 'Dublin Decider' in the summer of 2014 with clubs such as Barcelona, Manchester United and Celtic being mentioned as potential visitors to the Aviva Stadium. It was confirmed in March 2016 that Celtic would face Barcelona in the stadium on 30 July 2016, however, this was as part of the annual International Champions Cup pre-season tournament, and not any sort of independent 'Dublin Decider' fixture. Barcelona won the game 3–1.

Abandoned UEFA Euro 2020 hosting
On 19 September 2014, UEFA announced that the stadium would host four fixtures in the Euro 2020 finals tournament, three of which would be group games and, the fourth, a round of 16 matches. Had Ireland qualified they would have been guaranteed two home group games. As Aviva was not a commercial partner of the Euro 2020 tournament, the stadium would have been referred to as the Dublin Arena throughout. However, the COVID-19 pandemic intervened and UEFA postponed the tournament until 2021 (though UEFA retained the tournament's original name). Restrictions still in force after the pandemic's Third Wave struck the Republic of Ireland, killing thousands in the early part of 2021, meant that Dublin and the Aviva Stadium were unable to fulfil their hosting duties to UEFA's satisfaction and, therefore, the stadium lost its Euro 2020 host rights. The announcement, which came on 23 April 2021, allocated Dublin's three group games to the Krestovsky Stadium in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and Dublin's originally scheduled last 16 (group D winner vs group F runner up) tie to Wembley Stadium in London, England.

On 16 July 2021, the UEFA Executive Committee announced that due to the withdrawal of hosting rights for Euro 2020, the Aviva Stadium was given hosting rights for the 2024 UEFA Europa League Final. This was part of a settlement agreement by UEFA to recognise the efforts and financial investment made to host UEFA Euro 2020.