Arena Lviv – tournament stadium description

Initially in Lviv’s bid to host Euro 2012 games Stadion Ukraina was given as main venue. It was supposed to be rebuild with capacity around 40,000, a 30% increase. However as time went by final decision was made to build a new arena in southern outskirts of the city, near the bus station. Competition was announced in 2008 with Austrian Albert Wimmer winning and Ukrainian company Arnika responsible for documentation based on Wimmer’s design.

Construction works started in December 2008 and went through numerous stand-stills (strike, local residents’ protest and erroneous documentation were among reasons), but finally ended in late 2011, meeting UEFA’s “6-months ahead of Euro 2012” deadline. Opening ceremony took place in October when most systems weren’t working. They were launched not soon later, though. Construction was subject to numerous controversies and cost almost twice as much as similar stadiums cost in other European countries.

FK Lviv and Karpaty Lviv were two teams to play their games here, but after having tested it in several fixtures both moved back to their previous ground. It’s possible they will give it another try after Euro 2012.

Euro 2012 games

Average attendance: 32,607