Emirates Stadium

The Emirates Stadium located in Holloway, London, is the home ground to Premier League football club Arsenal. Replacing the former home ground Highbury, in 2006, the Emirates Stadium is the second largest club stadium in the whole of England after Manchester United’s Old Trafford. Formerly known as Ashburton Grove because of its location, it was renamed in 2004 as a result of a deal with the airline company Emirates.

The reason for a new stadium was due to the small seating capacity Highbury had. There was simply no room for expansion and with an ever growing fan base the waiting list for season tickets was getting far too long. Arsenal football club was losing out on a lot of revenue but the problem lay in the finding of a new site within the city of London.

The new site is located just 500 yards from the beloved Highbury and planning permission went ahead in 1999. However due to both planning and financial setbacks the opening of the new Emirates Stadium was out back from 2003 to 2006. At one point it was even thought that Arsenal would move into the newly revamp Wembley Stadium.

The project itself cost in excess of £470 million and was no easy ride for Arsenal to subsidise. Many delays were caused as a result of lack of funding but all was resolved by the granting of a loan and several UK Government bonds.

Emirates Stadium has a seating capacity for over 60,000 people and apart from being the new home football ground to Arsenal FC; it is also used as a conference centre and for hosting various music concerts.