St. Jakob-Park

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

UEFA EURO 2008
Stadiums

St. Jakob Park (Saint James' Park in English) is the stadium where FC Basel play. "Joggeli" as it is nicknamed, has a capacity of around 33,000 seats, and is due to be fitted with more seats in time for Euro 2008, which will be hosted in Switzerland and Austria. The stadium is divided into four blocks, A B C and D, each block is a whole side of the stadium. St. Jakob Park is a fairly new stadium, the construction started on the 13th of December 1998. The first game played in it was on the 15th of March 2001. The "Genossenschaft S.J.P" officially own the stadium, the stadium itself is managed by "Basel United". The stadium cost around 220 million Swiss Francs to build. Within the stadium are 32 stores on 3 different floors. There are also 2 restaurants within the stadium, these are "Restaurant UNO" and "Hattrick Sports Bar". The stadium has parking space for 680 cars on 2 different floors. The stadium can be reached either by bus, tram or train (the stadium has its own train station).

The stadium has been awarded 4 stars by UEFA, which is the highest amount of stars that can be awarded to a stadium of that size.

In 2006 there was a riot after a match between FC Basel and FC Zürich. See(2006 Basel Hooligan Incident for more details)

For Euro 2008, the St. Jakob park will be host to 6 games, 3 group games including the opening match, two quarter-finals and a semi-final.

The stadium capacity will be increased by 2008.

[edit] External links