Stadion

Westfalenstadion is a football stadium in the German city of Dortmund in the industrial metropolitan area of the Ruhrgebiet ("Ruhrpott").

The stadium is officially named Signal Iduna Park under a sponsorship arrangement lasting from December 2005 until June 2016[1], 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.[2]

It is the home stadium of the BV Borussia Dortmund football team playing in the German Bundesliga. It has a league capacity of 81,264 (standing and seated), and an international capacity of 65,718 (officially seats only). It is Germany's biggest stadium and established the European record in average fan attendance in 2004/2005 with a total of almost 1.4 million fans. 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 stadium has been nicknamed "The Opera House of German Football", "The Temple" or referring to the faithful Südtribüne "Yellow Wall". The Westfalenstadion hosted matches of the 1974 World Cup with Zaire, Scotland, Sweden, Brazil and later finalists Netherlands. It hosted several matches of the 2006 FIFA World Cup national teams of Trinidad & Tobago, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Togo, Switzerland, Japan, Brazil, Ghana and World Cup holders Italy. In the semi-final they were the first to beat Germany in an international match played at Dortmund.