RB Salzburg home ground is Red Bull Arena (named Salzburg when the team performs in UEFA competitions).
The arena, which was supposed to be one of the Euro-2008 stadiums, was built over 15 months. Construction began in October 2001 and was completed in March 2003. On March 8, the first match – between Wüstenroth Salzburg and FC Kernten – took place (1:1).
At first, the stadium was named Wals-Siezenheim in honor of the village of the same name near Salzburg, where it’s located.
After the acquisition of the club by Red Bull in 2005, the name of the stadium was changed to Red Bull Arena. The home stadiums of RB Leipzig and New York Red Bulls have identical names. Of course, all these clubs have the same owner – the Red Bull company.
The stadium hosted Euro-2008 matches under its old non-commercial name Wals-Siezenheim. During the continental championship, three games of the group stage took place here, all with the participation of the Greece national team, and in all three the reigning champions were defeated, including by the future champions, Spain.
After construction, the stadium had a capacity of only 18,250 spectators, but before the Euro, the number of seats was increased to more than 30,000.
Now the basic capacity of the stadium is 30,188 spectators, while at the euro cups games – 29,520.
The first match after the reconstruction of the stands took place on July 25 2007. All tickets were sold for the friendly in which RB Salzburg hosted Arsenal. Over 30,000 spectators witnessed the home victory of the “Bulls” due to the only goal scored by Vladimír Janocko.
The euro cups sell-out happened on July 31 2013, when 28,793 spectators gathered at the Champions League qualifier between Salzburg and Fenerbahce.
The new euro cups record was set on the anniversary of the opening, March 8 2018, when 29,520 spectators witnessed the duel against Borussia Dortmund in which Salzburg reached the quarterfinals of the Europa League for the first time.
However, at the Austrian Bundesliga games the stands of Red Bull Arena are not so actively filled, and starting from the 2018/2019 season, the club’s management decided to open part of the sectors only for season ticket holders and thus reduce the capacity of the stands to 17,218 seats for more compactness and better atmosphere of home matches.
It’s interesting that after the Euro-2008, by agreement with the local authorities, it was planned to return the original capacity of the stadium, but the management of RB Salzbur left an expanded number of spectator seats, which caused a wave of discontent and protests from the local authorities and environmentalists. In the end, the club got permission not to reduce the capacity. Nevertheless, the stadium is not the largest in terms of capacity in the country, second only to the Viennese Ernst Happel.
For a while, Red Bull Arena was the only stadium in the Austrian Bundesliga with an artificial turf, but in 2008, the club’s management decided to change it to natural one.
