About Johan Cruyff Arena
The Johan Cruyff Arena (formerly Amsterdam ArenA) is the main stadium of the Dutch capital city of Amsterdam. It is the home stadium of the football club AFC Ajax since its opening in 1996. The stadium was renamed in 2018 in honor of the legendary Dutch footballer Johan Cruyff who passed away in 2016.
It was the first stadium in Europe with a retractable roof. It has a capacity of 55,865. The stadium was one of the venues used during UEFA Euro 2000. It features a steep tiered design that keeps fans close to the action. The roof can be closed in 20 minutes, allowing for events in all weather conditions.
Besides football, the Arena is a major concert venue. The stadium is known for its advanced sustainability features, including thousands of solar panels on the roof and a massive energy storage system using second-life electric vehicle batteries. It sits at the heart of the ArenAPoort entertainment district.
The venue was designed by Amsterdam architectural practice Sjoerd Soeters with roof engineering by Rob Schuurman, and it opened on 14 August 1996 after a 27-month construction programme delivered by main contractor BAM Bouw for a headline outlay of 320 million Netherlands guilders (approximately 145 million euros at the January 1999 conversion rate). The ground is jointly owned by the Municipality of Amsterdam (52.7 per cent) and by AFC Ajax NV (46.5 per cent), with the balance of 0.8 per cent held by a passive minority financial investor via a special-purpose vehicle registered in Naarden. The plot forms part of the ArenA Boulevard redevelopment of the former Bijlmer district and the roof carries 4,200 monocrystalline photovoltaic panels installed in 2014 delivering an installed capacity of 1.02 megawatts peak.