NYC’s 1st dedicated soccer stadium named Etihad Park after United Arab Emirates airline

The city’s first-ever dedicated soccer stadium will be named Etihad Park, after the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, officials said on Monday. The New York City Football Club’s stadium is scheduled to open in Willets Point, in Queens, before the 2027 season.

The stadium has an anticipated capacity of 25,000 people and is being touted as a pivotal step in turning the city “into one of the soccer capitals of the world,” according to NYCFC CEO Brad Sims. The privately financed venue will be the first fully electric sports stadium in the city and all of Major League Soccer, the NYCFC said in a press release.

The Queens stadium will also be used to host concerts and festivals.

Sims expressed “a vision of building the city into one of the soccer capitals of the world.”

“Etihad Park will be the physical evidence of our deep and long-standing investment in New York City and will become a cathedral of soccer in the United States,” Sims said in a statement on Thursday.

Etihad Airways became a founding partner of the NYCFC in 2014. The airline will retain exclusive naming rights for the NYCFC stadium over the next 20 years, officials said.

Etihad Airways also began providing twice-daily flights to Abu Dhabi, the UAE’s capital city, into JFK International Airport earlier this year.

The stadium is a part of a new 23-acre neighborhood coming to Willets Point, just east of Citi Field in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. The development will include 2,500 affordable housing units and a public school capable of seating 650 students.