Atatürk Olympic Stadium

Location: Istanbul, Turkey
Capacity: 76,092
Home team: Turkey national football team

The Atatürk Olympic Stadium located in İkitelli, a district in the western outskirts of Istanbul, is the largest-capacity stadium of Turkey. The stadium is named after Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey, it was built for Turkey’s failed bid for the 2008 Olympic Games that were ultimately awarded to Beijing. It cost about US$140 million.

With its 76,761 (all-seater) capacity and Olympic size, it was granted the “5-star sports complex” title by the UEFA in 2004, enabling it to host the finals of UEFA events. The 2005 UEFA Champions League Final between Milan and Liverpool was played at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium on 25 May 2005. The stadium is also certified by the IAAF and IOC as a first-class venue for track and field, and has hosted several European athletic competitions. On 30 May 2020, the stadium was scheduled to stage its second Champions League final, however, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this was required to be postponed.

Süper Lig football team Istanbul BB used the venue as their home stadium until they moved to the Başakşehir Fatih Terim Stadium in 2014. Galatasaray played its home games at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium during the 2003–2004 football season, due to the renovation of their own venue, the Ali Sami Yen Stadium. Galatasaray eventually returned to Ali Sami Yen for the 2004–2005 season, but played 2006–2007 UEFA Champions League group stage matches at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium. Sivasspor also played some of its Süper Lig home games at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium due to the bad weather conditions in their original hometown stadium. Beşiktaş used the arena in the 2013-14 season to play most of their home games, with the reasoning being the same as Galatasaray’s, while their own stadium, the Vodafone Arena, was under construction.