Lansdowne Road

The Aviva Stadium (or New Lansdowne Road) is a sporting stadium located in Dublin, in Ireland, with a capacity for 51,700 spectators. Its official name is the Aviva Stadium while UEFA refers to it as the Dublin Arena.

The stadium is built on the site of the old Lansdowne Road venue, which was demolished in 2007, and replaces that stadium as home to its chief tenants: the Irish rugby union team and the Republic of Ireland national football team. The decision to redevelop the stadium came after plans for both Stadium Ireland and Eircom Park fell through. The Aviva Group signed a 10-year deal for the naming rights in 2009.

The stadium, located adjacent to Lansdowne Road railway station, officially opened on 14 May 2010. The stadium is Ireland’s first, and only, UEFA Elite Stadium and in 2011, it will host the Europa League Final. It will also host the inaugural Nations Cup, as well as the regular home fixtures of the national rugby team and national football team from August 2010 onwards.

Unlike its predecessor, which was solely owned by the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU), the current stadium is controlled by the IRFU and the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) through a 50:50 joint venture known as the Lansdowne Road Stadium Development Company (LRSDC). The joint venture has a 60-year lease on the stadium; on expiry the stadium will return to the exclusive ownership of the IRFU.

Rugby Union

The Ireland rugby union team is playing its home games at the stadium, as it did previously at Lansdowne Road, taking over from their temporary home, Croke Park, where games were being played during Aviva’s construction. Ireland’s first international game was on 6 November 2010 against South Africa, with the Spingboks winning 23-21. The game drew a disappointing crowd of 35,515, mainly due to a backlash by Ireland supporters over the IRFU’s controversial ticketing strategy for the November Test series. Initially, the IRFU announced that tickets to the November Tests would only be sold as packages for all four matches. Later, it announced that the tickets would instead be split into two packages, with the South Africa Test bundled with the following week’s match with Samoa for a minimum of €150, and the New Zealand and Argentina Tests bundled for a minimum of €190. Single-game tickets were to be available only for the Samoa and Argentina Tests. On 1 November, the IRFU backed away from this plan amid heavy criticism from member clubs that had problems selling the packages in a difficult economy.

The first rugby union game at the Aviva was an exhibition game on 31 July, billed as the O2 Challenge, involving under-18 and under-20 players from all four of Ireland’s provincial sides, with a Leinster/Ulster side defeating a Munster/Connacht combination 68-0. As part of the run-up to the event, O2 ran a promotion which gave the winner the opportunity to attempt to score the ceremonial first points at the Aviva via a simulated conversion kick on the day before the match. The winner of the promotion, John Baker of Ennis, was successful. The first official points at the Aviva were a try by Ulster’s Craig Gilroy in the O2 Challenge.

The stadium will likely also host occasional home games for Leinster when the RDS Arena’s smaller capacity will not satisfy demand. The IRFU also hopes to host the 2013 Heineken Cup final at the Aviva and are likely to place a bid in the near future.

Association Football

The stadium will also host the home games of the Republic of Ireland as did Lansdowne Road. The team has played most home games at Croke Park during the construction of the Aviva. The first soccer match in the Aviva was Manchester United against a League of Ireland XI side, managed by Damien Richardson, on 4 August 2010. Manchester United won the game 7-1, with Park Ji-Sung scoring the first ever goal in the Aviva Stadium The first international game for Ireland in the Aviva Stadium was a 1-0 friendly loss against Argentina on 11 August 2010. The first competitive goal was scored by Kevin Kilbane in a UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying game on the 7 September 2010 against Andorra.

The Aviva will also annually host the FAI Ford Cup Final, which was shared between the RDS Arena and the Tallaght Stadium while the new stadium was being built. The first Cup Final at the new stadium is scheduled for Sunday 14 November 2010. Tickets for the final are to be included as part of the ten year international tickets.

The 2011 Nations Cup will take place in the Aviva Stadium. The tournament features national football teams from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

The 2011 UEFA Europa League Final will take place in the Aviva as well. Due to UEFA rules against corporate sponsorship outside the federation, the stadium will be referred to as the “Dublin Arena” for the final.

The Dublin Super Cup is a pre-season football tournament which will be held in the Aviva.

(source .. wikipedia) reproduced under GFDL

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