Emirates Stadium
The Emirates Stadium is a football stadium in Holloway, London, England. It has been the home stadium of Arsenal Football Club since its completion in 2006. Arsenal's women's team made the stadium their home in 2024. It has a current seated capacity of 60,704, making it one of the largest football stadiums in England by capacity.
In 1997, Arsenal explored the possibility of relocating to a new stadium, having been denied planning permission by Islington Council to expand its home stadium, Highbury. After considering various options, the club bought an industrial and waste disposal estate in Ashburton Grove in 2000. A year later, they received the council's approval to build a stadium on the site; manager Arsène Wenger described this as the "biggest decision in Arsenal's history" since the board appointed Herbert Chapman in the 1920s. Relocation plans began in 2002, but financial difficulties delayed work until 2004. Emirates was later announced as the main sponsor for the stadium. The entire stadium project was completed in 2006 at a cost of £390 million. The club's former stadium was redeveloped as Highbury Square, an apartment complex.
The quality of Arsenal's pitch and groundsmanship have been recognised internationally and lead to it being nicknamed "the Carpet" by matchgoing fans and the wider sports media. Since 2009, the stadium has undergone a process of "Arsenalisation" with an aim of restoring visible links to Arsenal's history. The stadium hosts international football fixtures, as well as hosting international music acts on a regular basis.
History
Background
Spectator safety at football grounds was a major concern during the 1980s, following incidents of hooliganism, and disasters such as the Bradford City stadium fire and the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985, and the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. The Taylor Report into the Hillsborough tragedy was finalised in January 1990 and recommended the removal of terraces in favour of seating.Under the amended Football Spectators Act 1989, it became compulsory for first and second tier English clubs to have their stadia all-seated in time for the 1994–95 season. Arsenal, like many other clubs, experienced difficulty raising income for converted terraced areas. At the end of the 1990–91 season, the club introduced a bond scheme which offered supporters the right to purchase a season ticket at its renovated North Bank stand of Highbury. The board felt this was the only viable option after considering other proposals; they did not want to compromise on traditions nor curb manager George Graham's transfer dealings. At a price of between £1,000 to £1,500, the 150-year bond was criticised by supporters, who argued it potentially blocked the participation of those less well-off from supporting Arsenal. A campaign directed by the Independent Arsenal Supporters' Association brought relative success as only a third of all bonds were sold.
The North Bank was the final stand to be refurbished. It opened in August 1993 at a cost of £20 million. The rework significantly reduced the stadium's capacity, from 57,000 at the beginning of the decade to under 40,000. High ticket prices to serve the club's existing debts and low attendance figures forced Arsenal to explore the possibility of building a larger stadium in 1997. The club wanted to attract an evergrowing fanbase and financially compete with the biggest clubs in England. By comparison, Manchester United enjoyed a rise in gate receipts; the club went from £43.9 million in 1994 to £87.9 million in 1997 because of Old Trafford's expansion.
Arsenal's initial proposal to rebuild Highbury was met with disapproval from local residents, as it required the demolition of 25 neighbouring houses. It later became problematic once the East Stand of the stadium was granted Grade II listing in July 1997. After much consultation, the club abandoned its plan, deciding a capacity of 48,000 was not large enough. Arsenal then investigated the possibility of relocating to Wembley Stadium and in March 1998 made an official bid to purchase the ground. The Football Association and the English National Stadium Trust opposed Arsenal's offer, claiming it harmed England's bid for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, which FIFA itself denied. In April 1998, Arsenal withdrew its bid and Wembley was purchased by the English National Stadium Trust. The club however was given permission to host its UEFA Champions League home ties at Wembley for the 1998–99 and 1999–2000 seasons. Although Arsenal's time in the competition was brief, twice exiting the group stages, the club set its record home attendance and earned record gate income in the 1998–99 season, highlighting potential profitability.
Site selection and development proposals
In November 1999, Arsenal examined the feasibility of building a new stadium in Ashburton Grove. Anthony Spencer, estate agent and club property adviser, recommended the area to director Danny Fiszman and vice-chairman David Dein having scoured over North London for potential areas. The land, from Highbury was composed of a rubbish processing plant and industrial estate, 80% owned to varying levels by Islington Council, Railtrack and Sainsbury's. After passing the first significant milestone at Islington Council's planning committee, Arsenal submitted a planning application for a new-build 60,000 seater stadium in November 2000. This included a redevelopment project at Drayton Park, converting the existing ground Highbury to flats and building a new waste station in Lough Road. As part of the scheme, Arsenal intended to create 1,800 new jobs for the community and 2,300 new homes. Improvements to three railway stations, Holloway Road, Drayton Park and Finsbury Park, were included to cope with the increased capacity requirements from matchday crowds.Islington Stadium Communities Alliance – an alliance of 16 groups representing local residents and businesses, was set up in January 2000 as a body against the redevelopment. Alison Carmichael, a spokeswoman for the group, said of the move, "It may look like Arsenal are doing great things for the area, but in its detail the plan is awful. We blame the council; the football club just wants to expand to make more money." Tom Lamb, an ISCA member, was concerned about as air pollution and growing traffic, adding "that is a consequence which most Arsenal fans would never see, because they are in Islington only for about thirty days a year."
Seven months after the planning application was submitted, a poll showed that 75% of respondents were against the scheme. By October 2001, the club asserted that a poll of Islington residents found that 70% were in favour, and received the backing from the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. The club launched a campaign to aid the project in the run up to Christmas and planted the slogan "Let Arsenal support Islington" on advertising hoardings and in the backdrop of manager Arsène Wenger's press conferences.
Islington Council approved Arsenal's planning application on 10 December 2001, voting in favour of the Ashburton Grove development. The council also consented to the transfer of the existing waste recycling plant in Ashburton Grove to Lough Road. Livingstone approved the plans a month later, and it was then motioned to then-Transport Secretary Stephen Byers, who initially delayed making a final decision. He had considered whether to refer the scheme to a public inquiry, but eventually decided not to. Planning permission was granted by Islington Council in May 2002, but local residents and ISCA launched a late challenge to the High Court, arguing the plans were against the law. Duncan Ouseley dismissed the case in July 2002, paving the way for Arsenal to start work.
The club succeeded in a further legal challenge bought by small firms in January 2005 as the High Court upheld a decision by then-Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott to grant a compulsory purchase order in support of the scheme. The stadium later became issue in the local elections in May 2006. The Metropolitan Police restricted supporters' coaches to being parked in the nearby Sobel Sports Centre rather than in the underground stadium car park, and restricted access to 14 streets on match days. These police restrictions were conditions of the stadiums' health and safety certificate which the stadium requires to operate and open. The road closures were passed at a council meeting in July 2005.
Finance and naming
Securing finance for the stadium project proved a challenge as Arsenal received no public subsidy from the government. Whereas Wenger claimed French clubs "pay nothing at all for their stadium, nothing at all for their maintenance", and "Bayern Munich paid one euro for their ground", Arsenal were required to buy the site outright in one of London's most expensive areas. The club therefore sought other ways of generating income, such as making a profit on player trading. Arsenal recouped over £50 million from transfers involving Nicolas Anelka to Real Madrid, and Marc Overmars and Emmanuel Petit to Barcelona. The transfer of Anelka partly funded the club's new training ground, in London Colney, which opened in October 1999.The club also agreed new sponsorship deals. In September 2000, Granada Media Group purchased a 5% stake in Arsenal for £47 million. As part of the acquisition, Granada became the premier media agent for Arsenal, handling advertising, sponsorship, merchandising, publishing and licensing agreements. The club's managing director Keith Edelman confirmed in a statement that the investment would be used directly to fund for the new stadium. The collapse of ITV Digital in April 2002 coincided with news that the company was tied in to pay £30 million once arrangements for the new stadium were finalised.
In September 2002, Arsenal formulated plans to reduce its players' wage bill after making a pre-tax loss of £22.3 million for the 2001–02 financial year. The club appointed N M Rothschild & Sons to examine its financial situation and advise whether it was feasible for construction to press ahead at the end of March 2003. Although Arsenal secured a £260 million loan from a group of banks led by the Royal Bank of Scotland, the club suspended work on Ashburton Grove in April 2003, saying, "We have experienced a number of delays in arrangements for our new stadium project in recent months across a range of issues. The impact of these delays is that we will now be unable to deliver a stadium opening for the start of the 2005–06 season." The cost of building the stadium, forecasted at £400 million, had risen by £100 million during that period.
Throughout the summer of 2003, Arsenal gave fans the opportunity to register their interest in a relaunched bond scheme. The club planned to issue 3,000 bonds for between £3,500 and £5,000 each for a season ticket at Highbury, then at Ashburton Grove. Supporters reacted negatively to the news; AISA chairman Steven Powell said in a statement: "We are disappointed that the club has not consulted supporters before announcing a new bond scheme." Though Arsenal never stated how many bonds were sold, they did raise several million pounds through the scheme. The club also extended its contract with sportswear provider Nike, in a deal worth £55 million over seven years. Nike paid a minimum of £1 million each year as a royalty payment, contingent on sales.
Funding for the stadium was secured in February 2004. Later in the year Emirates bought naming rights for the stadium, in a 15-year deal estimated at £100 million that also included a 7-year shirt sponsorship, starting in the 2006–07 season. Emirates and Arsenal agreed to a new deal worth £150 million in November 2012, and shirt-sponsorship was extended to five years while naming rights were extended to 2028; a further extension of the shirt sponsorship rights was announced in August 2023, also taking that deal through 2028.
The stadium name is colloquially shortened from "Emirates Stadium" to "The Emirates", although some supporters continue to use the former name "Ashburton Grove" or "The Grove" to refer to the stadium, particularly by those who object to the concept of corporate sponsorship of stadium names. Due to UEFA regulations on stadium sponsors, the ground is referred to as Arsenal Stadium for European matches, which was also the official name of Highbury.