About Santiago Bernabéu
The Santiago Bernabéu Stadium is a football stadium in Madrid, Spain. With a current seating capacity of 81,044, it has been the home stadium of Real Madrid since its completion in 1947. It is the second-largest stadium in Spain and the third-largest home to a top-flight European club.
Named after football player and legendary Real Madrid president Santiago Bernabéu, the stadium is one of the world's most famous football venues. It has hosted the final of the European Cup/UEFA Champions League on four occasions. It also hosted the 1982 FIFA World Cup Final.
The stadium is currently nearing the completion of a massive renovation which includes a retractable roof, a retractable pitch, and a 360-degree video scoreboard. The metallic skin of the new facade allows images to be projected onto it. It is designed to be a digital and architectural icon for the 21st century while retaining its fearsome verticality.
The venue is owned outright by Real Madrid CF as a socios-owned association (asociación deportiva) since 6 March 1902 with members holding the freehold indirectly via their annual subscriptions. The 3.4-hectare plot at Avenida de Concha Espina 1 in the Chamartín district was purchased in 1943 from the Marqués de Comillas real estate portfolio for 3.2 million pesetas of the day, and the original bowl designed by architects Manuel Muñoz Monasterio and Luis Alemany Soler was inaugurated on 14 December 1947. The 1.76-billion-euro comprehensive rebuild between June 2019 and December 2023 was financed by a syndicated loan from JPMorgan and six other banks maturing over 30 years, and the new retractable pitch technology (VideoWall and LED envelope) was designed by Netherlands specialist Feyter Forklift Services under a 128-million-euro subcontract.