page_title: Brøndby Stadium
section_title: The pitch
hierarchical_section_title: Brøndby Stadium / Pitch and surroundings / The pitch
caption_attribution_description: English: The lights at Brøndby Stadium
context_page_description: Brøndby Stadium is a football stadium in Brøndbyvester, Denmark and the home ground of Danish Superliga club Brøndby IF. It is the second-largest stadium in Denmark. Built in 1965 and inaugurated on 31 June 1966 where it had no stands, it saw a major redevelopment in 2000 which increased capacity to 31,500 spectators, of which 19,700 were seated. Continuous adjustments to the spectator facilities have since resulted in the stadium having a total capacity of 28,000 spectators, of which 23,400 are seated. Record attendance dates to 18 June 2003, where a crowd of 31,508 were present in a Copenhagen Derby against F.C. Copenhagen.
  When hosting the UEFA competitions Champions League and Europa League, seats are installed on the South End terraces in accordance with UEFA regulations, which reduces the total capacity to 26,000.
  The stadium has also hosted the Denmark national football team in five matches. Their first game at Brøndby Stadium was a friendly against Portugal on 1 September 2006 which ended in a 4–2 win.
context_section_description: After the original pitch was put into service in 1965, it turned out that had not been drained properly and as a result the municipality had to ban all use of the pitch until the summer. Due to insufficient training grounds in the early years of Brøndby IF, the grass on the pitch quickly became worn, and in 1971 so many holes had appeared that it needed to be relaid.
  When all four stands had been erected in 1992, the pitch could be expanded and reshaped, which happened in 1996. On the same occasion, heat pipes and a new, specialised irrigation system were laid under the new grass playing surface. In addition to the improved pitch, new floodlights were installed on the roof of the west and east stands, in order for the lighting to meet the international requirements.
  The current pitch measures 105 metres (115 yd) long by 68 metres (74 yd) wide. There has been some controversy on the pitch throughout the years. In 2015, the grass playing surface had not been replaced since 1997, and was four times as old as the four-year-old green turf at Blue Water Arena in Esbjerg, which at that point made it the second oldest pitch in the Danish Superliga. During the fall of 2014, players and coaches began criticising the playing surface at Brøndby Stadium for its misarable state, which had meant that Brøndby's style of play had to be changed from a focus on technique to a more physical game.
  The stadium pitch has been an issue throughout the fall of 2014. That much is clear, and this has been a problem for our brand, image and style of play. Obviously. 
   —  Brøndby IF's Director of Sports Per Rud (January 2015)
  The explanation for the pitch's poor condition was allegedly its age and that Brøndby Municipality had been responsible for maintaining the pitches in and surrounding Brøndby Stadium until the end of 2013. According to Per Rud, however, blame was not to be placed by the municipality, and he stated that there was a difference between operating pitches of regular amateur clubs and professional clubs. At the end of 2014, the club decided to improve the pitch in three phases, where the first phase was to fill the grass playing surface with volcanic ash and setting up carbon dioxide tents to improve growth. The second phase was improving the pitch drainage, in order to guide the water away. The third and final phase was a complete relaying of the pitch. However, the last phase would only happen in 2016, where both the grass surface and the soil under the pitch were changed.
  In March 2015, it was revealed that the pitch would still be renovated in the summer of 2015, where access to the drainage and heating pipes were dug, in order for the pitch to drain properly in the future. According to then chairman, Jesper Jørgensen, a grass surface would be installed. On 13 April 2015, Brøndby IF announced that the coming home game would be played on a new grass pitch at Brøndby Stadium, and not as earlier planned after the 2014–15 season. A solution at the cost of DKK 1–2 million with turf from the Netherlands was chosen, which would constitute a temporary pitch before a major renovation was to be completed in October. In 2016, GrassMaster hybrid grass was installed which would become a permanent solution the pitch. The new pitch became popular, and the Superliga-captains voted the pitch as the best of the league on 30 May 2017.
caption: Floodlights at Brøndby Stadium.
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