German 2. Bundesliga club FC Schalke 04 has unveiled plans to renovate parts of the Veltins-Arena stadium in Gelsenkirchen as it looks to keep up with demand for tickets.
Express said that with the club flying high in the league, the clamour for tickets is immense at the moment.
There were around 80,000 requests for tickets for the match against Paderborn, excluding the VIP boxes and away section.
The club is now said to be examining the possibility of increasing the stadium’s capacity. More specifically, they are looking at the seating areas adjacent to the north stand on either side.
These could be converted into standing room, increasing the number of standing places from 800 to around 2,000.
Younger fans in particular are understood to be increasingly keen on standing room, which is why the seats at the corners of the north stand are becoming less and less appealing.
The club’s management could therefore comply with fan wishes while simultaneously increasing the stadium’s capacity – killing two birds with one stone.
FC Schalke 04, commonly known as Schalke 04, is a professional sports club from the Schalke district of Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany). It is best known for its football team which plays in the 2. Bundesliga, the second tier of the German football league system, following relegation from the Bundesliga in 2022-2023.
The Veltins Arena is a retractable roof-and-pitch football stadium in Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It opened on August 13th, 2001 as the new home ground for FC Schalke 04.
The stadium has a capacity of 62,271 (standing and seated) for league matches and 54,740 (seated-only) for international matches.
Express stated that changes could also be afoot on the other side of the stadium. The away section is reportedly set to become more flexible.
Since many visiting clubs are not using their full allocation of 6,000 seats, Schalke plans to make the seating section more flexible, thus creating more space for their own supporters.
Several hundred tickets remained unused at the match against Paderborn, even though over 4,000 away fans travelled to the game.
The club is already benefiting financially, as the approximately 4,000 VIP tickets are consistently sold out, preventing a revenue loss of around €100,000 per match compared to their previous Bundesliga days.
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