06 January 2025 GMT: 05:12

UEFA pick Berlin’s Olympiastadion for 2015 Champions League Final

Olympiastadion Berlin

By Mark Baber
May 24 – The 2015 Champions League Final will be held in Berlin’s Olympiastadion, the UEFA Executive Committee decided on Thursday at its meeting in London. Warsaw’s National Stadium won the honour of hosting the Europa League Final 2015.

Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit and Sports Minister Frank Henkel (CDU) greeted the decision as a “strong endorsement for Sport Metropolis Berlin.”

The only cloud on the horizon were doubts as to whether Berlin’s new Capital Airport would be ready in time – and whether the existing Tegel und Schönefeld airports would be able to handle the fans invasion.

However, Berlin plays host to the DFB-Pokal final on an annual basis and well over 100,000 fans attended the World Cup games and Final in the city in 2006.

The decision means Germany will have played host to Europe’s most prestigious trophy two times in four years, after Munich hosted the 2012 final, won on penalties by English club Chelsea against FC Bayern.

Wolfgang Niersbach, DFB president said he had talked to UEFA president Michel Platini at the Munich final in 2012 about Germany’s desire to host another such event, and that it had happened so quickly was recognition of Germany’s qualities as a host. He looked forward to a “festival of football in Berlin”.

Head of the 76,000 capacity Olympiastadion, Joachim E. Thomas, said he was delighted over the “enormous honour for our stadium” and that the stadium, which was fully refurbished in 2004, was ready.

Both stadiums chosen by UEFA for the next two Champions League finals are full of historical interest. The Olympiastadion was first built for the 1936 Olympic Games on the site of the original Deutsches Stadion and has been the ground for Hertha Berlin since 1963.

The 57,000 capacity National Stadium Warsaw, which was refurbished for Euro 2012, was constructed on the site of the old Tenth Anniversary Stadium which had been partly constructed from the rubble from the site of the Warsaw Uprising.

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