An hour-long episode about the Donetsk stadium was released by sports journalist Roman Bebekh, author of the YouTube channel Bombardyr. He and other participants of the video talked about the opening of the stadium by Beyoncé, the peculiarities of the Arena and its current state
Among them are Shakhtar ex-player Yevhen Selezniov, football fan and serviceman Artem ‘Skhidnyi’ Kariakin and football journalist Kostiantyn Andriiuk.
Donbas Arena was built during 2006-2009, and its total cost reached 400 million dollars.
With a capacity of 51 thousand people, the average attendance of Ukrainian championship matches at the Arena was 41 thousand people, which is a Ukrainian record. For this purpose, the administration sold cheap and standing tickets. Every employee of the club also had to buy tickets for the match.
Donbas Arena also set a Ukrainian record for match revenue, earning a million dollars for the Champions League quarter-final against Barcelona.
In 2011, after low attendance at one of the winter matches, the stadium management also launched a stands infrared heating system, the first in Eastern Europe.
About Beyoncé’s performance during the opening
The organizers’ priority was to invite Madonna to perform during the opening of the Donbas Arena, but she was unable to perform due to her world tour schedule. Beyoncé was invited instead, and the singer’s fee amounted to two million dollars. This amount also included a charter flight, a team of sound engineers and logistics.
The organizers didn’t know which car to choose to meet Beyoncé, so six cars were waiting for her at the airport, including the latest model of Porsche Panamera. The singer chose a Mercedes minibus.
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According to Andriiuk and Kariakin, the audience did not receive her performance well because people did not know who Beyoncé was.
‘Any global superstar could have appeared there and the fans would have said, ‘Well, OK…’. And then Shatunov shows up standing on an auto and driving on the grass — that’s it. You have to realize that most of the people who were at the stadium did not even listen to Beyoncé’s songs’, Kariakin said.
Immediately after the opening of the Donbas Arena, the stadium team started preparations for Shakhtar’s 75th anniversary, which was to take place in a year and a half. The organizers conducted a research, and based on its results they invited Rihanna, with whom it was easier to agree after Beyoncé’s performance.
You can watch the full video on Bombardyr’s YouTube channel.
