Real's upgraded stadium annoys the neighbours

Football stadiums are an increasingly expensive capital asset typically used for games during the season once every ten days on average.  Hence, there has been a move towards multi-use stadiums that can be used for other sports and concerts, Tottenham Hotspur being a classic example.   Some fans there think there has been too much focus on investment in the stadium and not enough on players given that the maximum pay is £200,000 a week, low for the Premier League.

Real Madrid is battling to save a billion-euro project to make its stadium a world-class concert venue after being forced to halt music events that turned the football club into the world’s richest noisy neighbour. The football club’s vision — backed by US investment firm Sixth Street — has been thrown into doubt by a battle with angry residents who have complained about intolerable noise from the concerts, which began this year as a €1.2bn stadium overhaul nears completion.

 The stand-off is an embarrassing blow to Real Madrid, the world’s most valuable football club and a cornerstone of the Spanish establishment, which had billed the redesign of the Santiago Bernabéu stadium as its route to becoming a multi-use venue. Neighbours labelled the stadium a “torture-drome” as they railed against noise pollution they said broke the law. Musicians who performed have been fined for their shows while a blame game has broken out over who is responsible.

José Manuel Paredes, a spokesperson for local residents, said Real Madrid had tried to replicate the US model of an out-of-town NFL stadium that doubles as a concert venue but in the middle of the EU’s second-most populous city. “With an institution like Real Madrid and a stadium so exposed to the urban environment, I can’t get my head around the idea that nobody stopped to think about how it was going to affect neighbours in terms of something as sensitive as noise,” said Paredes, whose neighbours’ association has filed a legal complaint against the club. “Either they knew it would be an issue and they didn’t care, or it’s a systemic failure of the whole decision-making process.”

The high point for the club was a pair of back-to-back Taylor Swift concerts in May for which the US artist sold more than 120,000 tickets. But it was a low point for residents, who complained of noise that shook their homes, drowned out their televisions and stopped their children sleeping as the shows went on until almost midnight.

The venue, which was originally completed in 1947, occupies one block of Chamartín, a bourgeois neighbourhood that has the highest net income per capita in Madrid. The remodelling involved splitting the pitch into six detachable sections that can be stacked in a vast underground storage space while other events take place overhead.

The architects kept the shell of the original stadium but put a retractable roof on top and wrapped it in curved stainless steel strips that have drawn comparisons with a spaceship. The stadium is bordered on three sides by apartment blocks, a government office, a church and the San Agustín school.

The club has said it is the responsibility of concert promoters — not the club — to ensure events comply with municipal regulations on noise. Since April, Madrid’s city council has hit promoters with 24 penalties totalling €2.6mn for Bernabéu concerts that exceeded the decibel level permitted by local law. But that has angered the promoters. Spain’s Association of Music Promoters said last month: “Responsibility for non-compliance with noise limits lies with the stadium and the competent authorities, who are responsible for ensuring adequate infrastructure and facilities . . . and granting the relevant permits.”

In response to questions, the club pointed to comments Pérez made to a meeting of club members in late November, when he said music events added “prestige” to Madrid’s image as a global city. But he also sought to play down their financial importance. “The organisation of concerts is not a particularly lucrative activity for the club,” Pérez said. “We limit ourselves to renting out the stadium . . . The income from this would be around 1 per cent of our annual budget.”