How was Santiago Bernabeu created?

Santiago Bernabéu is the son of a group of players who moved to a vacant lot next to the old Madrid bullring iin 1901 and created a football team. In 1912, they turned yet another vacant lot on O’Donnell Street into the best football pitch in Madrid.

In 1924, the Club decided to build the Old Chamartín Stadium, with capacity for 15,000 people and where Real Madrid played for 23 years.

After that, the President Santiago Bernabéu proposed to build a much bigger stadium with capacity for 100,000 fans. His proposal was criticised as a Pharaonic undertaking but, despite that criticism, the new stadium was built on the foundations of the old one and inaugurated in 1947.

The New Chamartín stadium was finished seven years after its inauguration, with capacity for 125,000 fans. Its name was changed to Santiago Bernabéu Stadium one year later and the stadium has hosted many of the most important sporting events during the following decades.

Bernabeu died in 1978 and couldn't see the further changes the stadium underwent for the 1982 World Cup, which was revamped again in the 1990s.

In 1998 the structures within the stadium were modernised in order to make them more comfortable and an ambitious commercial project was designed to keep the stadium open 365 days a year.

On 14 November 2007, UEFA notified Real Madrid that they had the intention of including the Santiago Bernabéu in their list of Elite Stadiums. With this distinction, UEFA rewarded the Club for its outstanding investment and organisation.e