Todor Diev Stadium () is a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

stadium A stadium (: stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage completely or partially surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit ...

Plovdiv Plovdiv (, ) is the List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, second-largest city in Bulgaria, 144 km (93 miles) southeast of the capital Sofia. It had a population of 490,983 and 675,000 in the greater metropolitan area. Plovdiv is a cultural hub ...

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

, located in the south urban area of Kichuk Parizh. The stadium opened in 1926 as a multi-sport venue of the domestic sport giant

Botev Plovdiv Profesionalen Futbolen Klub Botev AD, commonly referred to as Botev Plovdiv (, ), or simply Botev (within its associated city), is a Bulgarian professional Association football, football club based in Plovdiv. It competes in the First Professiona ...

. In 1949 the stadium was nationalized by the

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

authorities and later same year was given to the recently established

FC Spartak Plovdiv PFC Spartak Plovdiv () is a Bulgarian football club based in Plovdiv, which plays in the third tier of Bulgarian football, the Third Amateur Football League (Bulgaria), Third League. The club was established in 1947 and folded its senior team in ...

. The stadium was redeveloped in the period 1982–84. Presently the stadium holds 3,500 people, with more

standing room An event is described as standing-room only when it is so well-attended that all of the chairs in the venue are occupied, leaving only flat spaces of pavement or flooring for other attendees to stand, at least those spaces not restricted by occup ...

, and continues to be the home ground of Spartak. The stadium is named after Todor Diev, the greatest player in Spartak's history. The stadium's highest recorded attendance of 11,353 was in a

Bulgarian Cup The Bulgarian Cup () is a Bulgarian annual football competition. It is the country's main cup competition and all officially registered Bulgarian football teams take part in it. The tournament's format is ''single-elimination'', with all matche ...

semi-final game against

Blagoevgrad Blagoevgrad ( ) is List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, а town in Southwestern Bulgaria, the administrative centre of Blagoevgrad Municipality and of Blagoevgrad Province. With a population of almost inhabitants, it is the economic and cultura ...

`s FC Pirin (0:0) on 27 April 1994. The stadium is also known as Plovdiv's

Loftus Road Loftus Road, currently known as MATRADE Loftus Road Stadium for sponsorship reasons, is a football stadium in Shepherd's Bush, West London, Greater London, England, which is home to Queens Park Rangers F.C., Queens Park Rangers Football Club, w ...

- a tribute to the English

team A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal. As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect to in ...

QPR, which plays in the same hooped kit as Spartak.

References

Sports venues in Plovdiv {{Bulgaria-sports-venue-stub