Article updated: 31/07/2026
Love them or loathe them, there is one inescapable fact about the daily soap opera that is Real Madrid Club de Fútbol: It has a truly magnificent stadium. From its vantage point on Madrid’s prestigious Castellana, the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu is almost certainly the world’s most recognisable sports arena. And over the years, as Real Madrid has grown into a footballing institution, the stadium has come to symbolise the club’s power and, whisper it quietly, its elitism.
Founded in 1902 as Madrid Foot-ball Club, the Bernabéu is the club’s sixth stadium although the “estadios” used before 1912 were little more than roped-off fields. The first properly developed ground was the Campo de O’Donnell, which the club used for just over a decade before making the ill-advised move to a newly constructed velodrome in the eastern suburb of Ciudad Lineal. Away from the centre of town and the nucleus of Real Madrid’s support, the club stayed here for little over a year, before decamping to the district of Chamartin and a specially commissioned 15,000-capacity stadium. The Campo de Chamartin remained the club’s home for 22 years, although, following its near-destruction during the Civil War, it was rebuilt and, at its peak, held 22,000. This was not big enough for the former player, club secretary and now club president Santiago Bernabéu. In 1944, Bernabéu approved the purchase of 5 hectares of land that was sandwiched between the existing stadium and the Castellana, or Avenida del Generalísimo Franco as it was then known. On this site, at a staggering cost of 38 million pesetas, Real Madrid would build the new Estadio Chamartin and Bernabéu himself broke the first ground in October 1944.
The new build was on the old stadium’s doorstep, so close in fact that the northeast corner of the old Chamartin encroached on the new stadium’s footprint. Work continued on the other three sides, and Real Madrid finished off the 1945-46 season before finally closing the doors of the old Chamartin in May 1946. The new stadium took a further 18 months to complete, and so Real Madrid took up residence at Atlético Madrid’s Estadio Metropolitano. Finally, on 14 December 1947, Real entertained OS Belenenses of Portugal in the inaugural match at the Nuevo Estadio Chamartin. Designed by Luis Alemany Soler and Manuel Muñoz Monasterio, the stadium had a capacity of 80,000 spread over three sides of open double-deck stands and a lower bank of the uncovered terrace on the east side, where the old stadium had stood. In the centre of this terrace at the rear stood a neo-classical tower.
If Real Madrid was looking for an immediate on-field impact at their new stadium, they were to be disappointed. At the end of the 1947-48 season, the club finished eleventh, its lowest ever final placing. It is worth noting that, until the mid-1950s, the club’s trophy haul was relatively modest. Their two league titles had both been won more than twenty years earlier, while seven of their nine Copa victories had come before the Spanish Civil War. Much has been made of the claim that Real Madrid was Franco’s favoured club, and although Bernabéu himself was sympathetic to the Nationalist cause, allegations of government intervention in the club’s results or finances remain unsubstantiated. Indeed, Real Madrid won relatively little during the first fifteen years of Franco’s rule. It could even be argued that, in the end, it was Franco’s regime that benefited more from Real Madrid’s growing international prestige than the club benefited from the regime. Maybe Bernabéu sensed that the club was on the verge of something extraordinary, for little more than five years after the stadium opened, it entered the next phase of redevelopment.
Work began on remodelling the east side in 1953. On top of the relatively shallow bank of terracing grew an immense open stand, which featured a third tier or anfiteatro. This was flanked by two rectangular towers, complete with turrets. The new stand was opened on 19 June 1954, two months after the first league title of the Santiago Bernabéu era was secured. Whilst the new stand raised capacity to 120,000, it wasn’t just its dimensions that set it apart, but also its understated grace and refined lines. In recognition of Bernabéu’s unflinching dedication to the club, the stadium was renamed in his honour on 4 January 1955. As the new era of European club football got underway, floodlights were installed and unofficially used when Sport Recife of Brazil paid a visit on 18 May 1957. On 30 May 1957, the stadium staged its first European Cup Final against Fiorentina. A record crowd of 124,000 watched the home-town favourites secure a second victory in the competition. Then, except for new lights and a couple of club crests being added to the towers in 1969, the stadium stayed the same. Real continued to dominate the domestic scene with 14 league titles between 1960-80, but the club was no longer the dominant force in Europe. Santiago Bernabéu passed away in June 1978, by which time the stadium had been selected to host the 1982 World Cup Final.
However, by this stage, the elegant stadium of the 1950s required major surgery. The renovation was to cost 700 million pesetas, with Real Madrid covering three-quarters of the expense. The redevelopment included the installation of additional seating (reducing the stadium’s capacity to 90,000), a 150-metre footbridge linking the ground to a temporary media centre, and the strengthening and re-cladding of the stadium’s façade to support a new cantilevered roof covering three sides of the arena. Stadium aficionado Simon Inglis likened the roof to a Tupperware lid, snapped tightly onto the stadium’s bowl and its streamlined curves certainly added a pleasing modern symmetry to the stadium. It was nonetheless a major piece of construction, accounting for half of the overall cost. Using lightweight fibre-mix cement and acres of fibreglass panels, it swept around to meet the open, but still majestic east side. High, behind each goal, the roof fascia appeared to morph, so that video screens, the first in any stadium, could be accommodated. The remodelled Bernabéu saw its first official match when Real took on the USSR in February 1982.
The next significant phase of redevelopment arrived in the early 1990s when a third tier was added to the north, south & west sides. Unlike Valencia’s Mestalla or Barcelona’s Camp Nou, the club could not excavate the pitch because a metro tunnel runs directly beneath the stadium. In some sections, the tunnel is reportedly only a couple of metres below the surface, leaving expansion upwards as the only viable option. Work commenced in February 1992 and saw the existing roof of ten years removed piece by piece for safekeeping and huge prefabricated sections added to the stadium’s new outer skin. To access this new level, four cylindrical entrance towers were erected in each corner of the stadium. As each section was complete, the existing roof struts & panels were re-positioned, along with new sections in the corners. Due to the increased height, the pitch would be permanently shaded during the winter months, so under-soil heating was installed. Also, those fans on the lower tier of the west side required improved shelter, so a retractable roof was added. The work was completed on 7 May 1994 at a cost of 5 billion pesetas, increasing capacity to 110,000. Three years later, however, the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu became an all-seat arena with a greatly reduced capacity of 75,328.
The presidency of Florentino Pérez ushered in another period of transformation. Pérez quickly recognised that the stadium’s east stand, home to the directors, dignitaries, and media, was the only section left exposed to the elements. Backed by a budget of €127 million, the club embarked on an ambitious project to expand and modernise the east side of the stadium. The largest share of the budget was devoted to constructing a new upper tier and roof, enclosing the stadium for the first time. Other major improvements included the removal of the iconic twin towers, which were replaced by new VIP boxes, along with the addition of modern media facilities, bars, restaurants, and overhead heating to improve comfort during the winter months. When the redevelopment was completed in 2006, the stadium’s capacity had increased to 80,354. On 14 November 2007, just one month before its 60th anniversary, UEFA awarded the Bernabéu Elite status. A further ring of seating was added in 2011, increasing the stadium’s capacity to 81,044.
When Florentino Perez returned for a second spell as president in 2009, and after the seemingly mandatory purchase of more galacticos, his thoughts turned to the next phase of stadium redevelopment. In January 2014, German architects GMP’s design won an international tender. Their design featured a retractable roof, additional corporate facilities, a hotel and shopping complex, but tellingly, little, if any, change to the stadium’s capacity. What would need to change is the stadium’s footprint. The renovation required the stadium to expand outwards, and Perez thought that this issue was resolved as long ago as 1998. Back then, as part of a deal between the two to settle outstanding debts, the city council handed over a parcel of public land called Las Tablas, then valued at €425,000. When it was discovered in 2011 that it should not have been given to the club, Real Madrid was compensated with the land around the Bernabéu, estimated to be worth around €23m. However, in 2013, it became apparent that the council had no right to cede this public land, as under Spanish law public land can only be exchanged for public land. The redevelopment was initially suspended by the Madrid Supreme Court in August 2014 after the European Commission revealed it was looking into allegations of illegal state aid. In February 2015, the Madrid Supreme Court repealed the original planning permission, leading to Real Madrid officially suspending the €330m project.
With the original plans stalled, Real Madrid returned to the drawing board, redesigning the stadium with a smaller footprint and abandoning proposals for a hotel and shopping complex, while also reducing the number of parking spaces. After overcoming a series of planning hurdles, construction finally began in the summer of 2019. By then, however, the project’s cost had risen to more than €520 million, driven in large part by the addition of a retractable pitch and a subterranean service tunnel in the revised design. In March 2020, Real Madrid decided to speed up the renovation work after the RFEF suspended La Liga due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Once the league resumed in the early summer, Real Madrid switched their games to the Estadio Alfredo Di Stéfano at Valdebebas. For much of the 2020-21 campaign, home matches were played behind closed doors at the training ground, whilst work progressed on this mammoth project. Real Madrid returned to the Bernabéu in September 2021, but construction continued for another two and a half years. Delays, driven largely by difficulties sourcing steel and installing the stadium’s 360-degree video scoreboard, pushed the project’s completion to spring 2024. By then, the renovation’s cost had risen to €1.76 billion—more than triple the original 2019 estimate.
As expected, the revamped Estadio Santiago Bernabéu was included in Spain’s list of venues for the joint hosting of the 2030 FIFA World Cup along with Morocco and Portugal. Whilst the Bernabéu is favourite to host the final, as of the spring of 2025, FIFA has stopped short of naming which stadium will host the showpiece event. It faces stiff competition from the new Grand Stade Hassan II in Casablanca, which certainly has the edge in terms of capacity. Ever keen to maximise the use of the Bernabéu, in 2025 the stadium was confirmed as a host venue for the NFL’s International Games. This presented Real Madrid with a logistical challenge, as the standard playing surface for an American football game measures 110 metres in length, 4.5 metres longer than the pitch at the Bernabéu. To accommodate NFL fixtures, the club removed several rows of seating at each end and replaced them with prefabricated retractable sections. The changing rooms were also expanded to meet the space requirements of a standard NFL team and its match-day staff. Construction is scheduled to begin in the summer of 2025 and will also include upgrades to the stadium’s soundproofing.
A visit to the stadium evokes mixed emotions. Any football fan cannot help but be awestruck by the simple fact that this is the home of the most successful club in football history. Admirers of architecture, meanwhile, will appreciate its intricate design, the way it has evolved over the decades, and the care taken to preserve both the stadium’s identity and the club’s heritage. Despite this, any visit can be a rather clinical experience. You are reminded at every turn, either directly or subliminally, that this is a special, elite club. Real Madrid polarises opinion at home and abroad. One man’s elite aristocrat is another man’s arrogant poser. There is another view, however. Sure, from time to time, you shake your head in disbelief at the club’s antics, but it is a reasonable price to pay for the history and the remarkable monument that is the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu.
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