History
Since 1955, Molde had been playing their home games at Molde idrettspark (at the time called Molde stadion), a municipal-owned multi-use venue. A new stadium was proposed to be located at the waterfront at Reknes. There were many local protests, including complaints about the size of the structure. Construction of the land fillings and preparation of the construction site started in March 1997, before final approval had been granted by the municipality.
The stadium was inaugurated on 18 April 1998, when the stadium was officially opened by Prime Minister and Molde-fan Kjell Magne Bondevik. In the opening match, Molde beat Lillestrøm 4–0 in their first home game of the season, attracting 13,010 spectators. During the season, this was the match in the country with the most spectators not hosted at Rosenborg's home ground Lerkendal. On 27 May, the arena hosted its only international match, with Norway beating Saudi Arabia 6–0 in a 1998 World Cup friendly. On 11 August, CSKA Sofia visited Molde for the second qualifying round of the UEFA Cup, for which Molde failed to qualify. The all-time spectator record was set on 26 September, when Molde hosted Rosenborg BK in front of 13,308 people.
During the fall of 1999, Molde played two qualification games for UEFA Champions League at the stadium. Following the aggregated victories over CSKA Moscow and Mallorca, Molde qualified for the group stage, where they played Real Madrid, Porto and Olympiacos. Following entry into Champions League, the stadium was converted to an all-seater, with seats being installed on the lower sections of the short end stands. The reduced the attendance capacity permanently, because the club chose to not remove the seats afterwards.
In 2006, an agreement was made where Røkke's company Aker became the stadium name sponsor, with the stadium being renamed Aker stadion. The same season, the club was relegated to the First Division, where the team played in 2007. Despite the relegation, average attendance increased, and Molde won the league. Since 2008, the team has again played in the Premier League.
Molde later entered the UEFA Cup four times (renamed to Europa League in 2010), in 2000–01, 2003–04 and 2006–07, 2010–11, playing a total of eight home games, before they in 2012 again played qualification for the Champions League and Ventspils and Basel visited Aker Stadion. Molde were eliminated by Basel, but managed to qualify for the Europa League group stage and played against Heerenveen, Stuttgart, Steaua Bucuresti and Copenhagen at Aker Stadion.
Aker Stadion has been proposed used during the annual Moldejazz, Norway's largest jazz festival, but this has been rejected several times by the festival management. The issue was intensified in 2004, when a much smaller arena was used for a quickly sold-out Stevie Wonder concert. On 6 October 2007, StatoilHydro arranged a free concert at the stadium with Ane Brun and Röyksopp to celebrate the completion of their near-by processing plant for the gas field Ormen Lange.
Read more about this topic: Aker Stadion
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