Things get serious after November 8th.

Then Eintracht Frankfurt played their last home game of the year and the Waldstadion will be out for two and a half months thanks to the World Cup in Qatar.

A good opportunity to create the conditions for 13,000 standing places in the upper tier in the north-west curve.

The Sportpark Stadion Frankfurt am Main Gesellschaft für Projektentwicklung mbH, the full name of the municipal company, is using the time for the concrete work, with which the upper tier will be extended towards the interior.

Bernhard Biener

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung

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The complete conversion is not possible in the game-free time.

In fact, it started a few weeks ago, as Sportpark Managing Director Clarissa Böckl says.

The foundation is currently being strengthened.

"The statics have to be right if we prefer the grandstand." Work is mainly done in the underground car park, which is why not much of it can be seen.

Conversions take Ed Sheeran into account

In the next step, three guest boxes would be dismantled.

"The large, visible conversions will begin in November." Sportpark GmbH assigns the individual trades itself and has not commissioned a general contractor.

"At the moment we are absolutely on schedule," says Böckl.

This was coordinated with Eintracht and took the Ed Sheeran concert in September into account, for example.

Two of his three performances are already sold out.

When the game starts again in January, most of the upper tier in the north-west curve should be available again.

However, the expansion will continue.

Because in the future there will be room for twice as many spectators as before.

And elevators, kiosks and toilets with the corresponding installations have to be created for almost 13,000 people.

"That's the population of a small town," says Böckl.

The goal is to complete the conversion of the upper tier in one year, at the start of the 2023/2024 season.

When it comes to the time, the managing director borrows from a personality from the sidelines: "As of now."

Completion of work before the European Championship

Another deadline has been set.

All major work on the stadium must be completed by the end of 2023, according to the European Football Union UEFA.

Because the following year, five games of the European Championship will take place in Frankfurt.

The conversion of the stadium was not a prerequisite for the choice as a venue for the European Championship.

The desire for additional standing room came from a fan initiative and was supported by Eintracht.

Frankfurt had applied for the European Championship with a capacity of 48,500 seats, because UEFA has so far only allowed such seats for international games.

Although she has just announced that she will allow standing room tickets to be sold again for the next European Cup season after decades.

So far, the 7,500 standing places in the lower tier of the north-west stand have been equipped with seats for international games.

This towing should no longer be necessary in the converted upper tier.

According to the managing director, there are considerations for a system with lockable folding seats.

In the seating-only variant for international games, the capacity will increase by 1240 seats as a result of the conversion.

In Bundesliga operations, the Waldstadion has reached a size for 60,000 spectators through further optimization.

The newly created 13,000 standing places cannot simply be added to the previous capacity of 51,500, because around half as many seats will be lost when they are used.

In 2020, the city promised in the new lease with Eintracht Frankfurt Stadion GmbH that it would bear the costs of the conversion.

They were previously estimated at ten million euros.

In view of the price increases in the construction industry, this will not be sustainable, says Böckl.

The managing director does not want to give a new number yet.

According to the city's finance department, a magistrate's bill is in preparation.

Eintracht had committed to take over the “digital expansion”.

The new video cube in Deutsche Bank Park, as the stadium has been called since 2020 with a new sponsor, has been installed.

In addition, among other things, the floodlights are to be converted to LED technology.

"Otherwise we would have had to do that for the European Championships," says Böckl.

According to the most recent municipal decision, the municipal Sportpark GmbH is also taking on the in-depth examination of the multifunctional arena planned for the stadium.

The insights gained into traffic routing should also be useful for pure stadium operations.