Westfalenstadion

Westfalenstadion is an association football stadium in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the home stadium of the Borussia Dortmund football team playing in the German Bundesliga.
The stadium is officially named Signal Iduna Park under a sponsorship arrangement lasting from December 2005 until 2021, giving naming rights to the Signal Iduna Group, an insurance company. The older name Westfalenstadion derives from the former Prussian province of Westphalia, which is part of the German federal state North Rhine-Westphalia. It is one of the most famous football stadiums in Europe and was elected best football stadium by The Times for its renowned atmosphere.
It has a league capacity of 80,720 (standing and seated) and an international capacity of 65,718 (officially seats only). It is Germany's biggest stadium and the sixth biggest stadium in Europe. The stadium established the European record in average fan attendance in 2004–2005 with a total of 1.354 million fans. The stadium broke this record in the 2011–2012 season with almost 1.37 million spectators. The supporters' enthusiasm increasingly produces over 50,000 sold season tickets. Regularly 24,454 fans on the famous terrace called Südtribüne, fill the largest still existing standing area in European football. Famous for the intense atmosphere it breeds, the south terrace has been nicknamed "Yellow Wall". The stadium hosted matches of the 1974 FIFA World Cup and of the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
Various national friendlies and qualification matches for World and European tournaments have been played there as well as matches in European club competitions. Borussia Dortmund lost to Juventus in the UEFA Cup finals of 1993, only to win the UEFA Champions League final against them in Munich in 1997. Dortmund hosted the 2001 UEFA Cup Final.

History 

Plans to construct a new stadium were drawn up in the 1960s, as the need arose to expand and refurbish the traditional ground of Borussia Dortmund, the Stadion Rote Erde ("Stadium Red Land"). Following the historic triumph in the 1966 Cup Winners' Cup (Dortmund was the first German team to win a European club title), it became clear that the Stadion Rote Erde was too small for the increasing number of Borussia Dortmund supporters. The city of Dortmund, however, was not able to finance a new stadium and federal institutions were unwilling to help.
In 1971, Dortmund was selected to replace the city of Cologne, which was forced to withdraw its plans to host games in the 1974 FIFA World Cup. The funds originally set aside for the projected stadium in Cologne were thus re-allocated to Dortmund. However, architects and planners had to keep an eye on the costs due to a tight budget. This meant that plans for a 60 million DM oval stadium featuring the traditional athletic facilities and holding 60,000 spectators had to be discarded. Instead, plans for a much cheaper 54,000 spectator football arena, built of pre-fabricated concrete sections, became a reality. Ultimately, the costs amounted to 32.7 million DM, of which 1.6 million DM were invested in the refurbishment of the Stadion Rote Erde. The city of Dortmund, initially burdened with 6 million DM, only had to pay 800,000 DM, and quickly profited from the stadium's high revenues.
In the 1974 FIFA World Cup, the Westfalenstadion hosted 3 Group games and 1 Final Group game, during which the stadium was almost always filled to its maximum capacity of 54,000.
On 2 April 1974, Borussia Dortmund officially moved into their new home and has played in the Westfalenstadion ever since. Having been relegated in 1972, BVB was the only member of the 2. Bundesliga (second Division) to host the 1974 World Cup games in a completely new stadium. In 1976, after promotion to the Bundesliga, Borussia Dortmund played its first game in Germany's highest division in their new home stadium.