Estadio Monumental Virgen de Chapi

Ask who owns the ground at Arequipa and the answer runs through a university faculty rather than a club board. The Estadio Monumental Virgen de Chapi belongs to the Universidad Nacional de San Agustín, and it was staff at the university, working as architects, who drew up the design during construction between 1991 and 1993. That academic ownership still shows: alongside FBC Melgar, the university's own side, IDUNSA, plays its football here too, an arrangement rare among grounds of this size in Peru.

The naming history reflects a place that has been claimed by different institutions at different times. It opened simply as the Estadio Arequipa, later carried the university's initials as the Estadio Monumental de la UNSA, and only afterwards took on the Virgen de Chapi dedication, a nod to the patron figure venerated in the region.

Access runs mostly from the Urbanización Aurora side, where gates feed the northern and eastern stands, with further approaches off Avenida Venezuela and Avenida Lambramani. Set against the volcanic backdrop that surrounds Arequipa, the stadium has stood as Melgar's home since it opened in November 1993, giving the club a fixed base while the exact scale of the place remains harder to pin down than most: some records put capacity around 40,000, others closer to 60,000, a gap that has never fully settled.