Vinai Venkatesham wants Arsenal Women to play all their home matches at Emirates Stadium in the future.
While the Gunners’ CEO admits a number of operational challenges would need to be overcome, he believes the demand for tickets to watch Jonas Eidevall’s side in N5 gives the club confidence that it’s an ambition worth pursuing.
“The long-term vision is for Emirates Stadium to be the home of Arsenal Women and the home of Arsenal men,” Venkatesham told The Telegraph.
“It’s hard to put a timeline on it and it’s hard to know for sure if and how we’ll achieve it, but that has to be the vision.
“I’m not going to pretend for a moment it’s straightforward to get there – there are questions around ‘how do you handle it operationally, how to deal with fixture clashes? How do you deal with making sure that pitch is in tip-top quality? How can you be sure the demand is there?’ But that’s the ambition, that’s where we need to get to.
“It won’t be easy. There are challenges and it won’t be linear. But when you see the types of demand that we saw for Spurs [at home in September], the demand that we see for the Manchester United game, and we also see in Borehamwood that we increasingly sell out that stadium, it gives us more confidence that we can get there.
He added: “It’s such an exciting time for women’s football, and as a club we really feel like it’s our responsibility, given our history and heritage and our standing in the game, to be on the forefront of this new era for women’s football.”
Arsenal Women play the majority of their home games at Borehamwood’s 4,500-capacity Meadow Park with higher-profile WSL encounters and Champions League games taking place at the Emirates.
In the summer, the club sold 1,500 season tickets – double the number sold last season – and set a new WSL attendance record in September when 47,367 watched the team beat Sp*rs 4-0 in the north London derby.
The Gunners are expecting another bumper crowd at the Emirates this evening when Eidevall’s table-topping Gunners take on third-place Manchester United.
You can read Tim Stillman’s match preview, here. If you’re not able to make the game, it is being broadcast in the UK on Sky Sports at 5.30pm.
They should look at the Mercedes-Benz stadium in Atlanta to see the way they close off the upper tier to deal with varying attendance size and retain atmostphere. I think it’s kind of unique.
Well I’m a big enough idiot to have read the headline and thought ‘WTF, first the World Cup in Qatar and now Arsenal Women playing in the UAE!’. Anyways I like the actual idea presented here.
I. LOVE. THIS.
You properly made me chuckle 🙂
At least he got ONE. CHUCKLE 🤠
All top tier sides should be required to have the men’s and women’s teams play in the same venues as part of league participation.
AC and Inter manage to share. Torino and Juventus also? I’m sure there are more, but I don’t think these hurdles are impossible to clear
AC and Inter manage to share. Torino and Juventus also? I’m sure there are more. I don’t think the hurdles are impossible to clear
women’s football is really being forcememed down our throats of late. from arseblog putting out just as many arsenal women’s articles as the men’s side to now venkatesh calling for women’s matches (which struggle to sell out boreham wood’s tiny stadium) to be played in the mighty emirates. absurd…
While Arsenal Women matches do struggle to sell out Borehamwood’s tiny stadium, they get far bigger crowds at the Arsenal stadium. I thought I’d have a look into the logistics of getting to the Borehamwood stadium by public transport, and, for me, it would be a nightmare. The Arsenal stadium is accessible from 3 nearby rail stations and local buses. That may well be the reason. But what is really absurd is that you object to coverage on this site of the Arsenal Women’s team, which is provided in addition to all the men’s and youth stuff. Bigots are under… Read more »
Whatever you do, do NOT get a job in Marketing……
Nobody is forcing you to read the posts about Arsenal Women. You can simply choose not to read them, and move on to the next one.
Do you go into a restaurant and demand to speak to the manager to complain about the items on the menu you don’t like?
Oh don’t worry mate, I never click on an arsenal ladies story intentionally. But it is a pain having to scroll past an ever increasing deluge of ladies articles to read about the men’s first team. There is a clear top-down agenda from the woke execs at Sky, BBC, BT Sport, and the FA to ramp up women’s football coverage despite there being relatively little demand from the general public.
There were 40,000+ at the Emirates for this game. I’d say that’s substantial demand.
Also, my sympathies with the one or two fingers that have been so damaged by all that scrolling. What a labour intensive action that is.
Get well soon.
Of all the things in the world you could be angry about right now, you chose this.
Should have kept Highbury
Ground capacity wasn’t enough to compete with the new stadia going up in Europe.
Highbury was in the middle of a residential area and there was no room for expansion. In addition the East and West stands are listed buildings.
We had little option but to move to a bigger stadium.