Soccer-Italy, Poland and Portugal want to host Nations League Finals

LONDON, March 9 (Reuters) - The inaugural UEFA Nations League Finals are likely to be hosted by Italy, Poland or Portugal after the three countries expressed interest in staging the event in June 2019, European soccer's governing body said on Friday.

The three federations are all from Group Three of League A, the top division of the four-tier tournament which UEFA has introduced to replace international friendlies.

The trio were the only UEFA member associations to respond by the deadline for expressing an interest in bidding.

They will now have until Aug. 31 to submit official bid documents, before a final decision is made by the UEFA executive committee in December.

The finals will be a four-team event featuring the winners of the League A groups, with the semi-finals staged from June 5-6 before the third-place match and final scheduled for June 9. (Reporting by Christian Radnedge; Editing by Ken Ferris)