Two years ago, we presented Osasuna representatives with the 2021 Stadium of the Year award on El Sadar turf after the Pamplona-based stadium outclassed other venues in the annual competition. Appreciated by our readers, the complete reconstruction of the arena has just been paid off, and the stadium received another award.

Record time

In 2018, Osasuna's authorities decided on a major redevelopment of the already aging Estadio El Sadar, but the design was chosen by the socios. Through a vote, the choice fell on the project called Muro Rojo(spanish for Red Wall) revision by OFS Architects. The budget initially carried €16 million, but quickly grew to €23.3 million.

To finance the work, which was divided into phases II, the club took out loans from 3 banks for a total of €16 million. It began repaying them late, caused by the pandemic, in September 2020, and Osasuna repaid the last tranche of €2 million on June 21 of this year, a period of 46 months, as much as 10 years and 5 months ahead of schedule.

© CA Osasuna

Stadium of the Year 2021

Thanks to the loans that were just eliminated, the 3 stands were leveled into the main stand, and the stadium received a uniform shape in the form of a metallic rectangle. The new canopy covering the auditorium, in turn, received a ring shape in red, and large screens were suspended underneath. The reconstruction increased the number of seats to 25,048.

The work, underway between 2019 and 2021, caught the attention of our readers, who recognized its effect by awarding the new Estadio El Sadar 41,415 points in our annual Stadium of the Year contest. This was a score more than three times better than that achieved by the second-ranked Estadio Único Madre de Ciudades.

The statuette for the Stadium of the Year 2021 was received from the hands of the founder of the Stadiony.net and StadiumDB portals Grzegorz Kaliciak by Osasuna's president, Luis Sabalza. The award ceremony, which took place minutes before the whistle started the league clash with Real Madrid, was broadcast in 115 countries.

Check our Youtube channel to see where El Sadar ranks among Primera División stadiums according to our redactors:

Red or green?

El Sadar can be recognised by its ubiquitous red color, but the Los Rojillos arena received an award for being a...green venue. It's all about ecology, of course, as the club was awarded a certificate for meeting the UNE-EN ISO 14001 standard. The standard, which is not easy to obtain, requires sustainability – a balance between profit and environmental impact.

Meeting the standard is the result of the club's policy, which in January established a partnership with Moss to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to Navarra Televisión, to achieve this, Moss will calculate the carbon footprint emitted by Osasuna's facilities (but also, for example, the team's travel to matches), and the club will offset CO2 emissions by transferring money to the conservation of the Amazon rainforest.

© CA Osasuna

Unique in many ways

El Sadar stands out not only because it won the above awards, but also because it was the first project in history to be decided by socios. It has some of the steepest grandstands in the world, angled at about 40º.

The redevelopment of El Sadar has been one of Osasuna's biggest successes in recent years. According to the club's calculations, the 25,048-seat stadium has generated from ticket sales €10 million more in three years than it would have done in its old version. This balance is expected to improve by another €4 million next year. According to Diario de Navarra, 15% of the stadium's revenue is generated by the VIP area, which was enlarged thanks to the reconstruction.

In the 2023/24 season, El Sadar hosted 374,360 fans in its stands, according to Transfermarkt. This gave an average of 19,703 spectators per game and a fill rate of 83.6%.

© CA Osasuna