The English club have announced that the majority of league matches will be played at the Emirates Stadium next season.
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It’s a symbolic shift. Arsenal announced that the Emirates Stadium would become their team’s home stadium for next season on Tuesday (May 14). “We are delighted to announce that Emirates Stadium will host eleven matches of the women’s team’s 2024-25 season, making it their home stadium”writes the club in its press release.
In detail, the men’s section venue will host eight championship matches, and the three Champions League group matches, if the team manages to qualify. In the event of qualification for the final tournament, the Emirates will also host the knockout matches. The remaining matches will be played at Meadow Park, the stadium currently used by the women’s team and the men’s U21s.
This season, the Gunners have played six league matches at the Emirates, for an average attendance of 52,029 spectators according to the club, which represents an occupancy rate of 86%. Three of these six matches broke the attendance record for a WSL match, the women’s first division championship, to finally bring it to 60,160 spectators during Arsenal-Manchester-United, on February 17.
Other major teams in Europe play Champions League matches and certain championship shocks in the men’s stadiums, which are larger and better equipped, like Lyon and Paris SG in France, or even FC Barcelona, Wolfsburg and Chelsea.
But the announcement made on Tuesday by Arsenal constitutes an unprecedented development due to the number of matches which would be played in the same season in a stadium of this size (60,704 seats). In D1 Arkema this season, only three teams have hosted at least as many matches in the men’s section stadium.