Udinese

Location

Udine, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy, Italy

Capacity

25,144

Opened

1976

Time zone

UTC +01:00 Central European Time (CET)

The Stadio Friuli (currently known as Bluenergy Stadium for sponsorship reasons) is an all-seater football stadium in Udine, Italy, and the home of Serie A club Udinese. The stadium was built in 1976 and has a capacity of 25,144. The stadium is located in Rizzi, about 4 km from the city centre of Udine. Opened in 1976, as a replacement for Stadio Moretti, it used to have a maximum capacity of 41,652 seats. This capacity was recently reduced to 25,144, when the stadium underwent reconstruction. In 2013, the City of Udine granted Udinese Calcio a 99-year lease of the stadium. View of the stadium's previous configuration with running track and uncovered curved end stands, from the main stand (2009) The most recent reconstruction saw the removal of the athletics track, the demolishing of three sides of the stadium with only the "arc" / West end preserved and the three demolished stands rebuilt closer to the pitch. The cost of the redevelopment was around €50m and the work was completed with Udinese not having to move any of their home games to other stadia. The work on the new stadium officially began on 5 June 2013. During the summer of 2013, the athletics track was dismantled. On 23 June 2014, the foundation stone was laid by Udinese Calcio president Giampaolo Pozzo. The new Friuli was officially opened on 17 January 2016 when Udinese hosted Juventus. The sponsorship name of the stadium, Dacia Arena, was unveiled that day therefore the club entered into a new stadium-naming rights agreement with its parent company, Dacia.