Coventry Building Society Arena
The Coventry Building Society Arena is a complex in Coventry, West Midlands, England. It includes a 32,609-seater stadium which is currently home to football team, Championship club Coventry City, along with facilities which include a exhibition hall, a hotel and a casino. The site is also home to Arena Park Shopping Centre, containing one of UK's largest Tesco Extra hypermarkets. Built on the site of the Foleshill gasworks, it is named after its sponsor, Coventry Building Society who entered into a ten-year sponsorship deal in 2021. For the 2012 Summer Olympics and 2022 Commonwealth Games, where stadium naming sponsorship was forbidden, the stadium was respectively known as the City of Coventry Stadium and Coventry Stadium.
Originally built as a replacement for Coventry City's Highfield Road ground, the stadium was initially owned and operated by Arena Coventry Limited, with Coventry City as tenants. ACL was owned jointly by Coventry City Council and the Alan Edward Higgs Charity.
Following a [|protracted rent dispute between Coventry City and ACL], the football club left the arena in 2013; playing their home matches in Northampton for over a year before returning in September 2014. Within two months, both shareholders in ACL were bought out by rugby union Premiership Rugby club Wasps, who relocated to the stadium from their previous ground, Adams Park in High Wycombe. A further dispute with Wasps prior to the 2019–20 season saw Coventry City leave the Ricoh for a further two seasons. In March 2021, Wasps and Coventry City agreed to a ten-year deal to return to the arena and the city of Coventry. The deal became null and void with Mike Ashley's Frasers Group's purchase of the arena. In April 2023, it was announced Coventry City and Frasers Group had agreed a five-year deal for Coventry City to continue to play at the Arena, and on 23 August 2025, Coventry City announced they had become the landlords of the Arena following the completion of an acquisition deal from Frasers Group.
The stadium was the first cashless stadium in the United Kingdom, with customers using a prepay smartcard system in the ground's bars and shops. Following this, the stadium concourse and bars have remained cashless.
History
Planning a new stadium
The decision to move Coventry City from Highfield Road to a new stadium – with a larger capacity and better road links and parking facilities – was made in 1997 by the club's then-chairman Bryan Richardson. It was anticipated that the new stadium would be ready for the 2000–01 season. Permission for the construction of a 45,000-seater stadium was given in the spring of 1999, with a targeted completion date of August 2001. However, the stadium was delivered four years behind schedule, and was more basic than anticipated in the original plans.Coventry were one out of three cities to bid for England's new national stadium along with London and Birmingham. In 2001, Nick Nolan, the leader of Coventry City Council, claimed that their proposal was always the strongest as the construction could be completed within three years. The council's plan was to build a 90,000 all-seater stadium for an estimated cost of £250 million. However, it was decided that Wembley, London would remain the location for the national stadium.
The original design for the arena was for a state-of-the-art stadium with a retractable roof and a pitch that could slide out to reveal a hard floor for concerts. After Coventry City's relegation from the Premiership in May 2001, a number of contractor/financier withdrawals, and England's bid to host the 2006 FIFA World Cup ending in failure, the plans were significantly downsized. By the summer of 2002 plans were set for a more basic 32,500-seat stadium.
Naming of the stadium
The arena's first name, 'The Ricoh Arena' came from a multi-year sponsorship deal, reported to be worth £10 million with camera and photocopier manufacturer Ricoh. During construction the stadium was variously referred to as the Jaguar Arena, Arena Coventry and Arena 2000.The sponsorship deal with Ricoh came about after the stadium's initial sponsor, luxury car manufacturer Jaguar, was forced to pull out because of the commercial difficulties that had caused the controversial closure of the large Jaguar assembly plant at the city's Brown's Lane, previously a major source of employment in Coventry. On 4 August 2004, 12 months before the stadium's opening, it had been announced that the new stadium would be called the Jaguar Arena in a deal worth up to £7 million until 2015. However, the deal was cancelled on 17 December 2004. Jaguar did however retain naming rights to the [|Arena's Exhibition Hall]. Ricoh's sponsorship of the new stadium was confirmed on 26 April 2005.
On 5 May 2021, it was announced that the venue would be renamed the Coventry Building Society Arena. The name change came into effect in summer 2021 as a part of a ten-year naming rights deal with the UK's second largest building society.
Fall into administration and ownership changes
On 17 October 2022, it was confirmed that Wasps Holdings, the holding company for Wasps and Wasps Netball had entered administration. They ceased trading immediately and all playing and coaching staff were made redundant. Although the stadium operator Arena Coventry Ltd. were not included in the administration, they filed a notice of intention to appoint an administrator. On 2 November 2022, it was confirmed that stadium operator Arena Coventry Limited had also applied to enter administration. Initially all scheduled events would take place as scheduled. The administration hearing took place on 17 November where it was confirmed that the arena would enter administration but also immediately fall into the ownership of Frasers Group, who had a pre-signed deal to immediately take over the stadium should it fall into administration.On 23 August 2025, Coventry City Football Club officially announced the completion of its acquisition of the Arena from the Frasers Group, thereby becoming landlords of their home stadium 20 years to date of their inaugural competitive football match played here.
Football at the arena
Coventry City
The stadium hosted its first football match in August 2005. The official opening was performed by Dame Kelly Holmes and sports minister Richard Caborn on 24 February 2007, by which time the arena had already hosted a sell-out England U21 football match against Germany as well as a full season of Coventry City matches.The arena became the venue for Coventry City's home games at the start of the 2005–06 season, following 106 years at the Highfield Road stadium. The first competitive football match played at the stadium was against Queens Park Rangers on 20 August 2005, in front of a reduced 23,012 capacity crowd. The game ended to Coventry, with Claus Bech Jørgensen becoming the first player to score at the arena. Hull City became the first away team to win at the Ricoh, easing their way to a 2–0 win on 24 September 2005, with both goals coming from John Welsh.
The stadium has never seen a capacity 32,600 crowd for a Coventry City match, but 2025 saw their highest attendance to date, coming against Middlesbrough in a Championship match that saw 31,452 people in attendance. Coventry City won the match 2-0.
In December 2009, the first hat-trick was scored at the venue when Freddy Eastwood scored three past Peterborough United. Eastwood grabbed two goals before half-time before Craig Mackail-Smith netted a brace in the second half to level the scoring. However, Coventry City secured three points in the Championship fixture after Eastwood grabbed the final goal of the fixture just a minute after Peterborough levelled. Freddy Eastwood remained the only player to have scored a hat-trick at the Ricoh Arena until Coventry City loanee Jacob Murphy scored a first-half hat-trick in a League One fixture against Gillingham on 21 November 2015.
On 28 July 2011, a bronze statue of Jimmy Hill was unveiled at the entrance to the stadium after £100,000 was raised by Coventry City fans. He managed the club from 1961 to 1967 and was responsible for guiding it to the top flight. Despite this, Hill decided to resign as manager for a career in television but later returned to the Sky Blues as managing director before becoming chairman. When he died in December 2015, fans paid tribute by placing flowers and scarves by and around the statue.
The quickest ever goal scored at the ground was when Coventry striker Dan Agyei converted against Northampton Town after 19.5 seconds on 4 October 2016. This beat the previous record scored by Reading's Grzegorz Rasiak after 27 seconds in 2009, when Reading defeated Coventry 3–1. Rasiak's goal still remains the fastest one scored by an away side at the stadium.
Rent dispute (2012–13)
In December 2012, Coventry City owners SISU Capital became embroiled in a high-profile dispute with ACL over the rent arrangement and a lack of access to matchday revenue. The previously agreed rent amounted to £1.2 million per year, but did not give Coventry City access to matchday revenue.A deadline of 27 December 2012 was given by ACL for unpaid rent. After the deadline passed, a winding up order was enforced through the High Court. Subsequently, after ACL planned to place Coventry City FC Ltd into administration, the club itself entered administration, accepting a ten-point penalty from the Football League as a consequence. A further 10-point penalty was incurred when ACL refused to accept the terms of a company voluntary arrangement proposed by the administrator. Coventry City has since been bought by Otium Entertainment Group.
On 23 March 2013, Coventry City moved all its staff and club shop stock from the venue after a long dispute over rent and access to matchday revenue with the club.
Coventry City agreed to play their home games at Northampton Town's Sixfields Stadium to ensure that they fulfilled their fixtures. This resulted in ACL threatening to sue Northampton Town if they decided to carry on hosting Coventry City's home games. Northampton Town released a statement saying that they "will not be bullied or threatened". ACL subsequently withdrew its legal action against Northampton Town.