Football Stadiums in Israel

Football stadiums in Israel serve professional and community clubs across the country, as well as Israel’s national team and events beyond regular league fixtures. Prominent venues in the available sources include Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem, Bloomfield Stadium in Jaffa, Sammy Ofer Stadium in Haifa, Turner Stadium in Beersheba, Netanya Stadium, and the National Stadium in Ramat Gan.[1][2] The government inventory and historical reporting also identify grounds in localities including Umm al-Fahm, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Sakhnin, Acre, and Petah Tikva, alongside stadiums that were closed, demolished, or succeeded by newer facilities.[3][4]

The list is necessarily selective rather than exhaustive. Israel’s Ministry of Culture and Sport maintains a facility spreadsheet organized by local authority, with fields for facility type and name, locality, seating capacity, condition, competition suitability, official competition use, and establishment year; it includes entries classified as football stadiums.[3] A separate 2025 ranking compiled from Google Maps ratings included eleven venues, but its scores and ordering measured user reviews, not official standing, capacity, or completeness.[2] News reporting from 2026 likewise identified a group of stadiums approved for match hosting after inspections, while noting that some regularly used grounds were not included in that particular approval list.[6]

Capacity figures in published sources are not always directly comparable. Some are rounded, some refer to different years or renovation stages, and some describe anticipated attendance rather than total seating. Bloomfield reporting, for example, distinguishes between redevelopment capacities and an expected crowd at a particular match.[7][8] Where sources differ, the figures below are presented with their reporting context rather than treated as a single settled measurement.

Maccabiah Stadium in Tel Aviv was built for the first Maccabiah Games in 1932. It had 5,000 concrete seats, but crowds of up to 20,000 reportedly gathered around its perimeter in its better-attended years. The stadium stopped hosting matches in 1969, in part because sea winds had damaged its stands; its former site is now identified as a parking area and playground at the Tel Aviv Port.[4]

Ramat Gan Stadium was built in 1950 in time for that year’s Maccabiah, whose opening ceremony drew 45,000 people. It later became a major national sports venue and hosted football matches and Maccabiah opening ceremonies.[5][9] By 2019, however, the stadium was described as neglected, with three-quarters of it closed to spectators and only about 11,300 of its more than 40,000 seats approved for use. Its future was then uncertain, although the Israel Football Association maintained offices and other facilities at the site.[5]

The stadiums that followed or replaced earlier grounds illustrate the changing scale of club football facilities. The YMCA Stadium served Beitar Jerusalem from 1933 to 2006, with room for about 8,000 spectators in its better years. Its steep stands, wooden seating, and surrounding cypress trees were noted features; Teddy Stadium replaced it, and the former YMCA ground became a parking lot.[4] Accounts differ on Teddy Stadium’s original opening date and capacity: one says it opened in 1989 with 12,000 seats, while another describes a 15,000-seat stadium opening in southern Jerusalem in 1991. The latter says a foreign donor required that it be named in honor of Mayor Teddy Kollek.[10][11]

In Haifa, Kiryat Eliezer Stadium operated from 1955 to 2015 as Maccabi Haifa’s home ground. It began with 5,000 seats and eventually reached a reported 14,002; the ground was associated with major local matches before Sammy Ofer Stadium replaced it.[4] Kiryat Eliezer was demolished in November 2015, with housing planned for the site.[12] Sammy Ofer Stadium has been open since August 2014. It became home to Haifa’s two football clubs and the national team, and has hosted UEFA Champions League matches and European Championship qualifying games.[13]

Walla lists Vasermil Stadium’s lifespan as 1959–2019 and identifies it as Hapoel Beersheba’s former home ground. Its official capacity was listed as 13,000, although unofficial attendance could reach 17,000.[4] Turner Stadium, built in 2015, replaced it as the club’s home.[14] In Netanya, the Box Stadium served Maccabi Netanya before its closure and demolition; it was replaced by the newer Netanya Stadium, also known as the Diamond.[4] Sources differ on whether the old ground ceased operating in 2012 or remained in existence through 2014, while agreeing that it was demolished in 2014.[4][12]

Other historic grounds included Galei Gil Stadium in Ramat Gan, operating from 1949 to 1974 as Maccabi Ramat Gan’s home and capable of holding 4,000 spectators. Hakoah Ramat Gan won league titles there in 1965 and 1973; the stadium was demolished for a building in the Diamond Exchange district, and Winter Stadium replaced it for the associated club.[4] The Pardesim Ground in Kfar Saba operated from 1952 to 1986 as Hapoel Kfar Saba’s home. It held about 3,000 people, with several hundred more sometimes sitting on its boundary wall; the club won the 1982 championship there before the ground was replaced by Levita Stadium.[4]

Walla dates the Maktash Stadium in Givatayim to 1927–2011 and identifies it as Hapoel Ramat Gan’s home. Built into rock in the Borochov neighborhood, it began as an amphitheater and was later converted into a football ground; it was eventually demolished and replaced with residential development.[4] In Petah Tikva, Orva Stadium operated from 1967 to 2010 as Hapoel Petah Tikva’s home after replacing an earlier club ground. Its uneven pitch and poor grass contributed to its nickname, “the Stable”; HaMoshava Stadium later replaced it.[4]

Teddy Stadium is Jerusalem’s principal football stadium and the home ground of Beitar Jerusalem and Hapoel Jerusalem. It was established to replace the YMCA Stadium, and a 2024 report gave its capacity as 31,733 seats, describing it as Israel’s largest stadium after Ramat Gan Stadium had been limited to 13,370 seats.[15] A 2025 report similarly called Teddy Israel’s largest football stadium and gave a rounded capacity of about 31,700 after a major renovation completed by the Jerusalem Municipality and project partners.[1] Earlier publications reported 34,000 seats in 2013 and 32,000 after expansion in a 2019 overview.[16][17]

Teddy Stadium is located in Jerusalem’s Manhat neighborhood. A report on a planned friendly between Beitar Jerusalem and Barcelona identified it as the venue for the match scheduled for August 4, 2021.[10][18] The World Jewish Congress also listed the stadium among Israeli landmarks illuminated in yellow for its #WeRemember campaign marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2026.[19] A separate distance table placed Teddy Stadium 700 meters from Sharafat, without supplying further information about the stadium itself.[20]

Bloomfield Stadium is in Jaffa and is the home of Maccabi Tel Aviv, Hapoel Tel Aviv, and Bnei Yehuda Tel Aviv.[21] Britannica identifies it as the largest football stadium in Tel Aviv, with seating for about 16,500 in the cited passage, while later reports concern the redeveloped venue.[9] The earlier ground was described as a 14,000-seat stadium and was demolished after the 2015–16 season. After redevelopment, Bloomfield reopened in 2019 as a facility reported to hold 29,000 spectators.[7] Globes reported planned figures of 29,150 and 29,500 during the redevelopment process.[17]

The renovated stadium was described as having ten seating tiers, 32 entrances, four dressing rooms, and access provisions for people with disabilities.[7] Its three resident clubs had played elsewhere during the redevelopment and agreed to return to the venue.[7][17] A 2021 report referred to an anticipated crowd of 27,000, a figure that does not necessarily represent seating capacity.[8]

Sammy Ofer Stadium in Haifa has been open since August 2014. It is described as a UEFA Category 4 stadium with 30,000 seats, home to Haifa’s two football clubs and Israel’s national team, and a host of Champions League and European Championship qualifying matches.[13] A 2014 report gave a capacity of 30,800 and described it as Israel’s first and, at that time, only stadium with all stands covered around the full circumference of the pitch.[22]

Turner Stadium in Beersheba was built in 2015 as Hapoel Beersheba’s home ground, replacing Vasermil Stadium. The government inventory lists it with 16,363 seats and identifies it for Premier League use.[3] A 2026 report gives a capacity of 16,126.[14] Turner was among the regularly used stadiums not included in a 2026 list of facilities approved for hosting matches after Home Front Command inspections.[6]

Netanya Stadium was inaugurated toward the end of 2012 for Maccabi Netanya. A 2024 report gave its capacity as 13,610 and noted that it had also hosted Maccabi Herzliya, Ironi Kiryat Shmona, Hapoel Hadera, and Israel’s national team. In August 2024, the Netanya municipality unanimously decided to rename the venue after mayor Miriam Feirberg.[23] A separate report put construction costs at about NIS 250 million, while an earlier account described the stadium as having 14,000 seats.[24]

The Ministry of Culture and Sport inventory provides several examples of municipal stadiums beyond the best-known national venues. The Peace Stadium in Umm al-Fahm is listed with 6,000 seats and an establishment year of 1995; Yud-Alef Stadium in Ashdod with 7,000 seats and a 1965 establishment year; and Ashkelon Municipal Stadium with 8,000 seats and a 1980 establishment year. The spreadsheet marks these facilities as operational and used for official competitions.[3] Yud-Alef also appeared in a 2025 user-rating list of football stadiums, but that list’s ratings do not establish its official status or capacity.[2]

Doha Stadium is identified in commentary as the stadium of Bnei Sakhnin in Sakhnin, an Arab city in northern Israel. The article says the ground was named after Qatar’s capital and claims that Israel paid the construction cost while Qatar made a supplementary contribution.[25] This remains an attributed commentary account rather than independently corroborated information in the available material.

A stadium in Acre was built in 2011 at a reported cost of NIS 50 million, and it appeared among the football venues in Sport5’s 2025 user-rating ranking.[24][2] Green Stadium and HaMoshava Stadium also featured in that ranking, as did Ramat Gan Stadium and Yud-Alef Stadium.[2] The available facts do not provide capacity or a fuller profile for these venues, so their inclusion here does not imply a comprehensive description of each ground.

In July 2026, the new municipal stadium in Rehovot was reported as recently inaugurated, with about 6,000 seats, modern changing rooms, and a VIP area.[26] In May 2026, Sport5 reported that a new 20,000-seat stadium in Ashdod was nearing completion and was expected to replace Yud-Alef as MS Ashdod’s home the following season. That expectation was a forecast, not confirmation that the stadium had opened.[27]

Israeli stadiums have provided settings for notable club and international fixtures. In December 1967, Bloomfield hosted a match between an Israeli team and Ajax Amsterdam. Ajax were then reigning champions of the Netherlands and had reached the quarter-finals of the previous season’s European Cup, although few records of the match are available.[21]

In the 2003–04 State Cup final, Bnei Sakhnin defeated Hapoel Haifa 4–1 at Ramat Gan National Stadium.[28][29] Hapoel Haifa led 1–0 at halftime; Avi Danan, Lior Asulin, and Gavriel Lima scored after the break, with Asulin scoring twice.[28][29] The match drew 35,000 spectators, most of them supporting Bnei Sakhnin.[29]

The National Stadium in Ramat Gan has also been associated with the Maccabiah Games. The games have been held every four years since 1932 and include soccer among their events; their opening ceremony has taken place at the National Stadium.[30] The stadium was built for the 1950 Maccabiah, and its opening ceremony attracted 45,000 people.[5] These uses show that some grounds have functioned as multipurpose national venues, although the available sources do not establish that every event or capacity figure refers to the same configuration of the stadium.[5][9]

Vasermil Stadium’s history also included a high-profile international appearance: a report recalled that FC Barcelona played an official match there and won 7–0.[4] The available fact does not specify the date or opponent, so those details cannot be supplied here.

The National Stadium is in Ramat Gan, just east of Tel Aviv–Yafo, and has been described as the country’s principal athletic stadium.[9][31] Britannica gives capacities of more than 40,000 in its Tel Aviv–Yafo account and 50,000 in its Ramat Gan entry.[9][31] Encyclopedia.com describes the city’s largest sports stadium as holding 60,000 without naming it.[32] The sources do not establish whether these numbers refer to the same period or capacity measure.

The venue’s condition and usable capacity changed over time. In 2019, a report said that only about 11,300 seats were approved for use, although the stadium had more than 40,000 seats in total and three-quarters of it were closed to spectators.[5] Another 2024 report characterized the ground as limited to 13,370 seats when comparing it with Teddy Stadium.[15] These figures describe reported limits at particular times and should not be read as the stadium’s original or full built capacity.

The Ramat Gan stadium also appears in accounts of religious-secular tensions. A scholarly publication mentions the opening of a football stadium there on the Sabbath as one of several disputes involving religious and secular relations, but it does not name the stadium or give the opening date.[33]

Several former stadiums are remembered through their links to clubs and championship histories, as well as through the land uses that followed their closure. Hapoel Kfar Saba’s title-winning Pardesim Ground gave way to Levita Stadium; Hapoel Petah Tikva’s Orva Stadium was replaced by HaMoshava; and the Box in Netanya was succeeded by the modern Netanya Stadium.[4] In Ramat Gan, Galei Gil’s site was used for a building in the Diamond Exchange district, while Maktash Stadium in Givatayim gave way to residential development.[4]

The old Haifa grounds similarly mark a transition in the city’s football infrastructure. Kiryat Eliezer, once Maccabi Haifa’s home, was replaced by Sammy Ofer Stadium; D’Alessandro Stadium in Kiryat Haim had served Hapoel Haifa from 1958 to 1991 and was later left partly standing, with at least part of it used by the club’s youth department.[4] In its heyday, D’Alessandro was described as larger than Bloomfield, and crowds of 25,000 were sometimes packed into it.[4]

The history of D’Alessandro also illustrates the gap between a stadium’s formal capacity and attendance at particular moments. The reported crowds should not be treated as a certified seating capacity, just as the reported unofficial attendance at Vasermil exceeded its listed official capacity.[4][4] Stadium histories therefore include not only construction and replacement, but also the ways crowds used and remembered the grounds.

Sport5’s February 2025 ranking arranged eleven Israeli football venues by Google Maps ratings and review counts. In order, it listed Sammy Ofer, Turner, Bloomfield, Teddy, HaMoshava, Netanya, Acre, Green, Doha, Ramat Gan, and Yud-Alef. Sammy Ofer received a 4.6 score from 10,193 ratings, while Yud-Alef received 2.5 from 979; the list is a dated compilation of user evaluations, not an official or exhaustive stadium register.[2]

Other entries in the same ranking included Green Stadium at 3.8 from 538 ratings, Doha Stadium at 3.7 from 534 reviews, and Ramat Gan Stadium at 3.4 from 1,637 ratings.[2] These figures describe the ranking’s reported review data, not stadium quality measured by a technical standard, capacity, competition eligibility, or current operating condition.[3][2]

Stadiums have also appeared in national commemorative and sporting contexts. Teddy Stadium’s yellow illumination for the 2026 #WeRemember campaign placed it among landmarks participating in International Holocaust Remembrance Day observances.[19] The Maccabiah’s opening ceremony at the National Stadium and its inclusion of soccer further connect stadium use to organized Jewish sporting life in Israel.[30]

Recent reports place Teddy Stadium at approximately 31,700 or 31,733 seats.[15][1] Earlier publications reported 34,000 seats in 2013 and 32,000 in a 2019 infrastructure overview.[16][17] Separate historical accounts differ on whether Teddy first opened in 1989 with 12,000 seats or in 1991 with 15,000.[10][11]

Bloomfield’s redevelopment was described as producing a 29,000-seat facility, while Globes reported planning figures of 29,150 and 29,500.[7][17] A 2021 expected crowd of 27,000 was an attendance estimate rather than necessarily a statement of total seating capacity.[8]

For Sammy Ofer, reports cite 30,000 and 30,800 seats.[13][22] Turner Stadium is listed by the government inventory at 16,363 seats, while a 2026 report gives 16,126.[3][14] For Ramat Gan, references to more than 40,000, 50,000, and 60,000 do not establish whether the same period and capacity definition are being compared.[9][31] The 60,000 figure comes from an entry that does not name the stadium.[32]

A Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center report on the planned Beitar Jerusalem–Barcelona friendly relayed Palestinian organizations’ allegation that Teddy Stadium was built on land taken from the Palestinian village of al-Malihi. The report presents this as an allegation; the available material does not independently establish the land claim.[18] Separate sources disagree on Teddy Stadium’s original opening date and capacity.[10][11] Recent reports likewise use slightly different capacity figures.[15][1]

The account of Doha Stadium’s construction funding comes from a politically framed commentary article, which says Israel bore the cost and Qatar contributed supplementary funding. The available material provides no independent corroboration, so the account remains attributed rather than presented as a separately verified finding.[25] Other limitations are primarily cataloguing issues: the government inventory is a useful official basis for identifying facilities, but the supplied material does not provide a comprehensive, current national roster, and user-rating rankings are not substitutes for one.[3][2]