page_title: Melbourne Rectangular Stadium
section_title: Capacity
hierarchical_section_title: Melbourne Rectangular Stadium / Stadium design / Capacity
caption_attribution_description: English: 2015 AFC Asian Cup opening match Australia Kuwait, 9 January 2015
context_page_description: The Melbourne Rectangular Stadium, known as AAMI Park for sponsorship reasons, is an outdoor sports stadium on the site of Edwin Flack Field in the Sports and Entertainment Precinct in the Melbourne City Centre. The stadium's major tenants are NRL team Melbourne Storm, the Super Rugby team Melbourne Rebels, and the A-League teams Melbourne Victory FC and Melbourne City FC.
  AAMI Park became Melbourne's first large purpose-built rectangular stadium when completed in 2010. Referred to as Melbourne Rectangular Stadium during its construction, the ground was officially named AAMI Park on 16 March 2010, in an eight-year sponsorship deal with insurance firm AAMI. When the project to build the new stadium was approved, the largest stadiums in use were the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Docklands Stadium. These were venues of oval configuration and best suited to Australian rules football or cricket. The previous largest rectangular stadium in the city, Olympic Park, was a repurposed track and field venue.
  The stadium was one of five venues for the 2015 AFC Asian Cup, hosting the opening match and six other matches including one Quarter-final game.
context_section_description: The stadium was initially proposed to have a seating capacity of 20,000, upgradeable to 25,000.  This was due to both expected demand, as well as a state government agreement with Docklands Stadium that no stadiums with a capacity greater than 30,000 would be constructed in Melbourne before 2010. These plans were revised after the Victory refused to commit to playing at a stadium of such small capacity, having achieved an average attendance of over 27,000 since their move to the Docklands Stadium in the 2006–07 A-League Season.
  Alternative plans put forward by the Victorian Government proposed a capacity of 30,050, on the condition that the Victory sign on as a tenant. An agreement was reached and the stadium went ahead at this capacity. To assist with the extended capacity, temporary stands can be erected behind the goals during soccer matches and removed during rugby league and union games so as to allow space for the in-goal area (an international soccer pitch measures 105 metres in length, while including the in-goal areas, rugby league and rugby union have a minimum field length of 112 and 120 metres respectively). Although the stadium was built with foundations to allow for future expansion to 50,000, the roof was not designed with this in mind, and so the stadium cannot be expanded without major construction work. Construction of the stadium was featured during a 2010 episode of the TV show Build It Bigger.
caption: Australia v Kuwait during the 2015 AFC Asian Cup
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