Denmark National Football Team - Stadium

Stadium

First home game of the Denmark national football team, was a 2–1 friendly win over England at 25 May 1910, taking place with 12,000 spectators at the stadium "KBs baner" (located in the area "Granen", where Forum Copenhagen later was build). As the facilities were considered too small, a new stadium in Copenhagen was built with the name Idrætsparken, that since its opening 25 May 1911 hosted all the home games of the football club KB and most of the home games of the national team. During the first 82 years of the national team, from October 1908 until November 1990, Denmark played a total number of 254 A-level home games, of which 232 were played in Idrætsparken. Among all the played home games in Idrætsparken, Denmark achieved 125 victories (54%), 41 draws (18%) and 66 lost games (28%); and the stadium reached a record of 51,600 spectators for the 1–2 game against Sweden in June 1957. In regards of the first era from 1908–1990, only 22 home games were played at other stadiums than Idrætsparken; of which 11 took place at NRGi Park (then known as Atletion) in Århus, followed by Aalborg Stadion in Aalborg with 6 games, and the remaining 5 games hosted by four other stadiums. Whenever another stadium than Idrætsparken was used for a home game, it was however only for some of the less important friendly games or Olympic qualifiers. While only Idrætsparken was used to host the games related to big important tournaments, like the Nordic championship, European Championship and World Cup. When a major rebuilt of Idrætsparken began in December 1990, the subsequent two official Euro 1992 qualification games, were however moved to Odense Stadium in Odense.

On September 9 in 1992, the rebuilt Idrætsparken, now called Parken, became the biggest venue in Denmark with 42,358 seats, and was opened with a friendly 1–2 defeat against Germany. This first game in Parken had a visit of 40,500 spectators; while the current stadium record at 42,099 spectators was reached the 8 October 2005, for a World Cup qualifying game against Greece.

The capacity of the stadium was later reduced to 38,009 seats, after the upper part of the D-side was converted from 4,000 extra seats into office and VIP areas, in June 2009. Despite this decrease in capacity, the stadium is today still the biggest venue in Denmark by far; as the next biggest venue Brøndby Stadium only has a capacity of 26,000 seats. During the time from September 1992 until May 2006, Parken was the sole stadium of all the men's senior national team matches. However, meagre spectator support at some of the friendly matches at Parken, which for the years in 2000–2005 attracted an acceptable average of 23,862 per game, but down to 9,598 for the friendly 3–1 win over Israel in April 2002; caused the decision by DBU, to start moving many of the friendly matches to other stadiums around the country. These other stadiums had less spectator capacity than Parken, but just about enough, to cover the Danes somewhat lower interest for the friendly games.

At 27 May 2006, Parken's 13-year monopoly on national team matches got broken for the first time, when Denmark played a friendly game at the NRGi Park stadium in Århus, against the World Cup 2006 participants Paraguay. This particular game got outsold within a short while, with almost 19,000 of the 20,227 tickets being sold within the first hour of sale, and was support-wise a big success with a total audience of 20,047 spectators. When the two next friendly games were played at some other new venues, August 16 at Fionia Park in Odense with Poland as opponent, and September 1 at Brøndby Stadium with Portugal as opponent, the number of spectators however dropped to a disappointing level. The match against Poland only attracted 11,088 spectators, while the match against Portugal only attracted 13,186 spectators; and the match against Portugal was in particular deemed as a support-wise failure, as it featured a higher ranked opponent, which spectators normally would have a high interest to watch. The main reasons why Brøndby Stadium failed to attract a high number of spectators, were generally thought to be a combination of the poor rainy weather, and the fact that this stadium is located on the outskirts of Copenhagen; and as such does not attract a new demographic audience compared to Parken, due to the travel distances being more or less the same for the majority of the population.

Currently, while most of the friendly games continue to be played at some of the smaller stadiums in Denmark, it has been decided to continue playing all of the qualifying games for the European Championships and World Cup, only at Parken Stadium. Those friendly games, which are believed to create a high interest from spectators, will also continue to be played at Parken. In example, the friendly game against Germany in August 2010, took place at Parken Stadium, due to the general expectation of many spectators having a desire to watch the game. After the weak performance of Denmark at the World Cup 2010, the friendly game however only managed to draw a total number of 19,071 spectators. During the last 19.5 years, from September 1992 until January 2012, Denmark played a total of 77 A-level games at Parken Stadium; of which 49 were won (64%), 16 were drawn (21%), and only 12 were lost (15%).