St. Jakob-Park

St. Jakob Park (help·info) is a Swiss sports stadium. It is the largest football venue in Switzerland and home to the FC Basel. "Joggeli", as the venue is nicknamed by the locals, was originally built with a capacity of 38,500 seats. The capacity has now been increased to 42,500 for the Euro 2008, which will be hosted in Switzerland and Austria.

The stadium is divided into four main blocks, A, B, C and D, each block covering one side of the stadium, and block G, consisting of the upper balcony added later. St. Jakob Park is a fairly new stadium; construction started on the 13 December 1998, replacing the former St. Jakob Stadium. The re-opening game took place 15 March 2001. The "Genossenschaft S.J.P" officially owns the stadium, while the stadium itself is managed by "Basel United". The stadium cost around 220 million Swiss Francs to build. Within the stadium, there are 32 shops on three different floors, as well as two restaurants (the "Restaurant UNO" and "Hattrick Sports Bar"). The stadium has parking spaces for 680 cars on two different floors. The stadium can be reached either by bus, tram or train (the stadium has its own train station).

The stadium has been awarded 4 stars by UEFA, which is the highest amount of stars that can be awarded to a stadium of that size.

In 2006, there was a riot after a match between FC Basel and FC Zürich. See 2006 Basel Hooligan Incident for more details.

For Euro 2008, the St. Jakob Park will be host to 6 games - 3 group games (including the opening match), two quarter-finals and one semi-final.