Vasil Levski National Stadium (Bulgarian: Национален стадион „Васил Левски“), named after Bulgarian national hero Vasil Levski, is the country's largest stadium. The stadium has 43,230 seats and is located in the centre of Sofia, on the territory of the city's oldest and most famous park - the Borisovata gradina.
Vasil Levski National Stadium was officially opened in 1953 and reconstructed in 1966 and 2002. The Bulgaria national football team's home matches and the Bulgarian Cup finals are held at the venue, as well as athletics competitions. It was also used as the home venue for Levski Sofia's Champions League games.
Prior to their demolition by the Communist authorities during the 1940s, two other stadiums stood on the ground where the current national stadium lies. One of those was Levski Sofia's club stadium, called Levski Field (Bulgarian: Igrishte Levski, completed 1934), and the other - the Yunak Stadium (built 1928). The latter used to host national football team matches with its capacity of about 15,000 seats. Levski were compensated for their loss with a place in the suburbs of Sofia where they were allowed to build a new stadium - the present day Georgi Asparuhov.
The stadium offers also judo, artistic gymnastics, basketball, boxing, aerobics, fencing and table tennis halls, as well as a general physical training hall, two conference halls and three restaurants. It hosted the 1957 European basketball championship.
It was the proposed venue for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies in Sofia's bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics.
In July 2011 plans were announced to build a new, state of the art 40000-seater national stadium in the Sofia suburbs.
Read more about Vasil Levski National Stadium: Concert Venue
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