Amsterdam Arena

Club: AFC Ajax

Opening: 1996

Capacity: 53,052 seats

The Amsterdam Arena was built between 1993 and 1996. It replaced Ajax’s previous home De Meer, which with a capacity of 19,000 seats, had become too small for the club.

The construction of the Amsterdam Arena cost €140 million.

The stadium combines a retractable roof with a grass surface. This caused some problems in the beginning: the grass rolls would not grow in the shade of the open roof and had to be replaced up to four times a year.

In recent years plans were made to increase the capacity of the arena, but these were attached to a Dutch-Belgian 2018 World Cup bid, and now this bid has failed they are unlikely to get executed.