The 2015 BBC Sports Personality of the Year will be held in Belfast on Sunday, 20 December.

An 8,000-capacity audience at the city’s Odyssey Arena is expected to attend the annual awards show.

It will be the first time that Northern Ireland has hosted the event, which first went on the road in 2006.

The programme will reflect on a packed year which includes a Rugby World Cup, Women’s Football World Cup and an Ashes series on UK soil.

In addition, 2015 will see all the Olympic sports gearing up for Rio 2016, including the World Athletics Championships in August, plus all the home nations’ football teams seeking to secure qualification to Euro 2016.

Tickets for the Sports Personality of the Year will go on sale later on in the year from the Odyssey Arena box office.

Presenting the show to the live arena audience plus the millions more watching on TV will be Gary Lineker, Gabby Logan and Clare Balding.

The spectacular evening is a chance for the public to share the experience with the stars before crowning their personality of the year, via a public vote.

Last year’s show in Glasgow, watched by just under 9m viewers on BBC One, saw

Lewis Hamilton win

the coveted title.

The BBC’s Director of Sport Barbara Slater said they had wanted to bring the show to Belfast for a long time.

“The city, and Northern Ireland as whole, is home to so many sporting legends and steeped in sporting history, not to mention its worldwide reputation for a welcome second to none,” she said.

“We are looking forward to a truly spectacular show.”

Golf’s world number one and runner-up for Sports Personality of the Year in 2014, Rory McIlroy, said Belfast had shown over the past few years that it could hold massive events like the Sports Personality of the Year.

“We have the facilities like the Odyssey Arena which hosted the MTV music awards. I think it will be huge,” said McIlroy.

“Belfast has been crying out for events like this, and in the years since the Millennium it has grown into a really vibrant city.”