Veltins-Arena

Arena AufSchalke (German pronunciation: [aˈʁeːnaː ʔaʊfˈʃalkə]), currently known as Veltins-Arena (pronounced [ˈfɛltɪnsʔaˌʁeːnaː]) for sponsorship reasons, is an indoor football stadium in Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It opened on 13 August 2001, as the new home ground for Bundesliga club FC Schalke 04.

It hosted the 2004 UEFA Champions League Final and five matches at the 2006 FIFA World Cup, including a quarter-final. It has a capacity of 62,271 (standing and seated) for league matches and 54,740 (seated only) for international matches. The stadium has a retractable roof and a retractable pitch. The naming rights to the stadium were sold on 1 July 2005 to German brewery Veltins.

History

Plans to construct a new stadium emerged in the late 1990s, as fans and managers sought to move out of the outdated Parkstadion, and create a thoroughly modern multifunctional arena. Following Schalke 04's historic 1997 victory in the UEFA Cup, and the club's upcoming 100th anniversary in 2004, the contract to construct a €186 million stadium was given in 1998 to the German construction firm HBM.

This page also has a version in other languages :  Фельтинс-Арена (russian)