2006 FIFA World Cup - Venues

Venues

In 2006, Germany had a plethora of football stadia that satisfied FIFA's minimum capacity of 40,000 seats for World Cup matches. The still-standing Olympiastadion in Munich (69,250) was not used even though FIFA's regulations allow one city to use two stadia; Düsseldorf's LTU Arena (51,500), Bremen's Weserstadion (43,000) and Mönchengladbach's Borussia-Park (46,249) were also unemployed during the tournament.

Twelve stadia were selected to host the World Cup matches. During the tournament, many of them were known by different names, as FIFA prohibits sponsorship of stadia unless the stadium sponsors were also official FIFA sponsors. For example, the Allianz Arena in Munich was known during the competition as FIFA World Cup Stadium, Munich (or in German: FIFA WM-Stadion München), and even the letters of the company Allianz were removed or covered. Some of the stadia also had a lower capacity for the World Cup, as FIFA regulations ban standing room; nonetheless, this was accommodated as several stadia had an UEFA 5-star ranking.