AEK Arena – Georgios Karapatakis

AEK Arena – Georgios Karapatakis (Greek: ΑΕΚ Αρένα – Γεώργιος Καραπατάκης) is a football stadium in Larnaca, Cyprus. Completed in 2016, it is the home ground of AEK Larnaca and has a total seating capacity of 8,058. Since 2021, it also hosts the home games of the Cyprus national team.

AEK Arena

Full name	AEK Arena – Georgios Karapatakis
Location	Larnaca, Cyprus
Coordinates	34°55′35″N 33°35′52″E
Owner	AEK Larnaca
Operator	AEK Larnaca
Capacity	8,058
Field size	105 m × 68 m (344 ft × 223 ft)
Surface	Natural Grass
Scoreboard	Yes
Construction
Broke ground	2016
Built	2015–2016
Opened	17 October 2016; 8 years ago (2016-10-17) [1]
Construction cost	€8,500,000 [2]
General contractor	ZEMCO GROUP
Main contractors	ZEMCO GROUP
Tenants
AEK Larnaca FC (2016–) ASIL Lysi (2019–2021) Cyprus national football team (2021–) UEFA U-17 Championship (2024)

Name

The stadium's official name is "AEK Arena – George Karapatakis", in honor of the father of the President of AEK, Mr Andros Karapatakis.^[3][4]

History

AEK Arena was built on land owned by the GSZ Stadium. AEK Larnaca and GSZ have agreed to build a stadium on this land.^[5] The stadium is owned by AEK Larnaca, and was built by its own cost.^[5] The responsibility of the construction was assigned to Balltown Holdings (Public) Ltd, which was founded for this purpose by AEK.^[5]

The construction of the stadium was planned to be done in two phases. The first phase began on 7 September 2015.^[6][7] Initially, only 3 of the 4 stands would be built.^[5] However, in the course of the implementation of the project, a mandate was given to build the fourth stand.^[8][9]

The stadium was inaugurated on Monday 17 October 2016 with the match between AEK and Aris for the 7th matchday of the 2016–17 Cypriot First Division. AEK won the match with 4–0 score. The first goal which achieved in AEK Arena was scored by Jorge Larena.^[10][11][12] The official inauguration took place on 27 November 2016.^[13][14]

The first match of European competition was held on 29 June 2017 for the first qualifying round of Europa League 2017–18, when ΑΕΚ faced Lincoln Red Imps F.C. AEK won the match with 5–0 score.^[15][16][17]

Funding

The cost of building the stadium:^[5][18]

1) €7 million for the first phase

2) €3 million for the second phase

Categorisation

Since September 2022, AEK Arena is classified as a UEFA Category 4 stadium.^[19]