Gamla Ullevi

Gamla Ullevi holds 18,454 when part of the ground is standing and 16,603 when every spectator is seated. Got Event publishes both figures side by side rather than averaging them into one, which is the honest way to describe a ground that changes shape by fixture. It opened in April 2009 and is shared by three senior clubs.

Gamla Ullevi capacity — two figures for one ground

The two numbers differ by 1,851 places, and that gap is the standing section. Swedish domestic football permits terracing that all-seated competition rules do not, so the same building is licensed at one figure for a league match and a lower one when every spectator must have a seat. Neither number is the ground's "real" capacity. Which one applies depends on the competition, and a page that quotes only the larger figure is describing a configuration the reader may not be attending.

Why do three clubs share Gamla Ullevi?

Got Event, the City of Gothenburg's events and arena company, lists IFK Göteborg, GAIS and Örgryte IS for the 2026 football season. Three senior clubs sharing one ground is rare anywhere; three from the same city is rarer still, and it means Gamla Ullevi stages derbies in which both sets of supporters are tenants of the building.

The arrangement follows from ownership rather than from any agreement between the clubs. Got Event is a municipal company, and Gamla Ullevi is civic infrastructure that clubs hire rather than a home any one of them owns. That is the normal Swedish model and it is close to unknown in England, where a shared ground usually means a landlord and a tenant rather than three equal hirers.

Where do away fans sit at Gamla Ullevi?

IFK Göteborg allocate visiting supporters section A/O, entered through entrance 1, with a capacity of about 1,500 that can be extended into section P4 when a fixture needs it. The away end is divided into three zones, and how many open depends on ticket sales and on discussion with the visiting club. Away passes are checked against a list at the entrance rather than scanned, so arriving without being on it is a problem no turnstile will solve.

The shared tenancy shapes the away end in a way a capacity figure cannot show. When Gamla Ullevi stages a Gothenburg derby the visiting supporters are tenants of the same building, arriving from across the city rather than across the country, which is a segregation problem with no travel time built into it. IFK Göteborg's own following gathers between fixtures at SportsForum.se, which runs a section for the club. The three-zone structure exists for exactly this reason: an allocation that is right for a visiting side from Norrland is wrong for one from four kilometres away.

What the attendance records show

Got Event records the men's attendance record as 18,276, set by IFK Göteborg against Djurgården on 11 April 2009, and the women's as 16,789, set by Sweden against England on 16 July 2024. The men's record is worth a second look: it was set six days after the ground's opening match and has stood ever since, 178 places below what the arena is licensed to hold today.

The women's record repays a closer look still. At 16,789 it is 186 higher than the ground's all-seated capacity of 16,603, which means that crowd cannot have been accommodated with every spectator seated — the standing section must have been open. Got Event does not present the figures that way. It follows from putting two of its own numbers next to each other, and it is the clearest illustration on this page of why the capacity concept matters more than the capacity.

The pitch measures 105 by 68 metres, the standard for international competition, and the ground carries 23 boxes, two restaurants and 17 kiosks across roughly 2,500 square metres of commercial space. Gamla Ullevi was designed by Lars Iwdal.

Sources and verification