The Estádio da Luz , officially named Estádio do Sport Lisboa e Benfica, is a multi-purpose stadium located in Lisbon, Portugal. It is used mostly for association football matches, hosting the home games of Portuguese club Benfica, its owner. Opened on 25 October 2003 with an exhibition match between Benfica and Uruguayan club Nacional, it replaced the original Estádio da Luz, which had 120,000 seats. The seating capacity of the new stadium is currently set at 64,642. The stadium was designed by HOK Sport Venue Event (now Populous) and had a construction cost of €162 million. A UEFA category four stadium and one of the biggest stadiums by capacity in Europe (the biggest in Portugal), Estádio da Luz hosted several matches of the UEFA Euro 2004, including its final, as well as the 2014 and 2020 finals of the UEFA Champions League. It was elected the most beautiful stadium of Europe in a 2014 online poll by L'Équipe.[4][5][6] By its fifteenth birthday, Estádio do Sport Lisboa e Benfica Luz had welcomed more than 17 million spectators.[7] The stadium is one of the potential venues for the 2030 FIFA World Cup, which Portugal will co-host along with Morocco and Spain.
While the previous Benfica stadium was also officially named "Estádio do Sport Lisboa e Benfica", both the old and the new stadia are invariably referred to by their unofficial name, Estádio da Luz. Luz is the name of the neighborhood the stadium was built on, on the border between the parishes of Benfica and Carnide, which itself derives its name from the nearby Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Luz (Church of Our Lady of Light). This unofficial name caught on soon after the original stadium's construction;[8] the people of Lisbon used to simply call it a Luz ("the Light"). Therefore, the stadium's common name became "Estádio da Luz", which is usually anglicised to "Stadium of Light".[9] This translation, however, could be argued to be inaccurate, since Luz refers not to "light" but to the original address of the stadium: Estrada da Luz ("Road of Light")
An adequate terrain, with good accessibility and enough room for future expansion was identified, in the north-east end of the Benfica neighbourhood. Being located in the limit between the Benfica and the Carnide neighbourhoods, though, the new stadium was at first known as "Estádio de Carnide". It was always the objective of the club to own both the stadium and the terrains, though at first a lease was made on the municipal terrains, with a final buy-out occurring only in 1969. The plans for the sports complex had been sketched as early as the late 1940s, by João Simões, a former player for the club. Driven by the club's president, Joaquim Ferreira Bogalho, the associates coped with an increased fee for supporting the building costs for the new stadium, offered large donations, and some went as far as to work themselves on the building yard on holidays or weekends. There was even a "cement campaign", whereby large quantities of cement bags were offered to the club. The works officially started on 14 June 1953. Less than two years after, and at a cost of 12,037,683 escudos, on 1 December 1954 (a national holiday), the 40,000 capacity-crowd filled the stadium for the inaugural match against rivals FC Porto.
Websites FIFA:
Becoming a leading global provider of digital solutions and services for the sports industry, enabling our clients to achieve their goals and reach their full potential.
We aspire to be a trusted partner and advisor to our clients, leveraging our expertise and passion for sports to help them succeed in a rapidly changing market.
