Puskás Aréna has won Stadium of the Year by the popular voting of the Stadium Database website. More than 30,000 votes have been cast and almost half of the voters gave points to the Aréna, so the stadium of the champions has become the champion of the stadiums.
Stadium Database, world renowned website dedicated to football stadiums, hosted its competition for the most attractive stadium of 2019 in February-March. Conditions of entry were strict and clear: only minimum 10,000 spectators capacity stadiums, officially opened in 2019, were accepted. The competition had two categories. A jury of architectural experts chose their winner based on three criteria: structure, functionality and innovation (in this category Puskás Aréna got shared second place behind the Japan National Stadium). The second category was the popular vote for the most attractive stadium, cast until 15 March.
Visitors of the website could cast their vote for 21 stadiums located in 19 countries. There were five finalists: besides Puskás Aréna, the stadiums of the Tottenham Hotspur and the Dynamo Moscow, the Al-Wakrah of Qatar and the MOL Aréna in Dunajska Streda. Votes arrived from 107 countries. According to the data of Stadium Database, Puskás Aréna got points from every second voter, got to the lead after the first few days and stayed there to win with an extra high result of 57.613 points.
Puskás Aréna, which meets the challenges of the 21st century maximally, had already won recognition on many professional forums. Architect of the stadium, György Skardelli, who was awarded the Kossuth Prize recently, hoped that the public would like this stadium as much as its pedecessor. The number of voters from Hungary was especially high, but many votes arrived from Slovakia, Poland, Argentina, Indonesia, Great-Brittain, the USA and the Philippines as well. Winning the first place is the continuation of a tradition for KÖZTI, last year the DVTK Football Stadium at Diósgyőr won Stadium of the Year.
More information: B. Nagy Erika erika.nagy.b@sterlingcooper.hu
